Luo Youdu breathed a sigh of relief after receiving the letter from Wu Desi and confirming that Li Chuyun was safe.
This plan could not keep up with the changes. He captured Jia Shi and directly attacked and killed the Wu Zhe tribe, annexed the Lao Er tribe, confirmed his hegemonic status, and cleared the muddy waters of Liangzhou.
The original plan of fishing in troubled waters naturally could not be carried out.
The plan to internally divide the situation in Liangzhou was even more difficult. Fortunately, Li Chuyun was alert enough to remain unchanged in response to changes and stabilized his position.
Which step he can take next depends on his own performance...
In half a year, as long as it lasts for half a year and this year's autumn harvest is handed over, we can fight for Lianglong in the west, and first recover the homeland of the Han family in the west.
Luo Youdu stored the secret letter and picked up the folder on the desk.
I reviewed two copies and received a report from the Privy Council.
"On June 20th, he fought with the Khitan cavalry in Dongsheng, defeated them, and killed 421 enemies."
A very brief sentence made the corners of Luo Youdu's mouth curl up slightly.
This is the fourth time this month!
Luo Youdu was sure that he remembered correctly. In less than a month, Fugu fought four battles with the Khitan and three battles with the Dingnan Army.
It seems that the advantage of regaining the hometown of Northern Han and Yanyou has begun to appear.
Salt, iron, and tea, these three supplies are the most urgently needed supplies for the Khitan.
It happened that the Dingnan Army relied on Hengshan, which was rich in salt, iron, and tea.
The Khitan had not relied on the supplies of the disaster-rescuing army before.
Because there is sea salt from Jingu, the capital of Youdu, iron from the Northern Han Dynasty, and tea smuggled from the Central Plains.
But with the loss of Yanyou land and the fall of the Northern Han Dynasty, there was a serious shortage of iron and tea supplies in Datong Yunzhong.
Salt is fine so far.
There was a land rich in salt in the Khitan territory, and among the craftsmen they plundered from the Central Plains there were talented people who were skilled in making salt.
Guangji Lake in the Northeast is a salt lake, as well as Huiming Lake, Tanshan Salt Pond, etc. The salt produced is self-sufficient and there is no problem.
It's just that most of the salt-producing areas are concentrated in the Northeast. If the Yunzhong area in the west wants to get salt from the Northeast, the freight costs are astronomical.
The Khitan could maintain the demand for edible salt in Datong Prefecture, but the consumption along the way meant that the price would not be cheap.
If a commodity like salt is too expensive for the common people to afford, they will suffer from rickets even if there is no trouble.
The whole Khitan people are in the army, and the people are all suffering from rickets. What kind of war should they fight?
Therefore, Datong Prefecture currently has a huge demand for salt, iron, and tea from the Dingnan Army.
After Li Yiyin offended Luo Youdu, he completely turned to the Khitan.
In fact, Li Yiyin has been secretly doing business with the Khitan. A warlord like him will only follow his own interests and will not be loyal to anyone.
Now it's just a matter of putting everything out there.
"As a result, Fugu will be under greater pressure."
Luo Youdu pondered for a moment.
Originally, the trade between the Dingnan Army and the Khitan went through the Northern Han Dynasty, marching eastward from Linzhou, arriving in Taiyuan, then heading north to Yanmen Pass in Daizhou and reaching Yunzhou in Datong.
There are many mountains and rivers along the way, safety is important, and there are official roads along the way.
Now we can only transport the goods to Datong Yunzhong by going around Fugu along the edge of the desert and making a circle.
But obviously it is impossible to pass through Zhejiafu Valley comfortably.
Not to mention the order issued by Luo Youdu, just cutting off the road between Fugu and the Central Plains was enough to make Fugu bear a grudge.
In the past, when planning to mobilize troops, one had to plan carefully for fear of delaying spring plowing and autumn harvest.
Now that there is financial and material support from the Central Plains, the Zhe family has become more aggressive in deploying troops.
The encirclement of the Dingnan Army was extremely tight, and the enemy of the country and the family were both enemies, and the Dingnan Army was watched to death.
The Khitan army was forced to attack the enemy, and the Khitans were speechless.
Datong repeatedly sent cavalry to invade the boundaries of Fuzhou. The reason why the Zhe family was able to live alone was to know the time and do things well.
If you can win, fight; if you can't, then retreat.
After two or three months, I fought more than ten battles without suffering any losses.
But this situation must continue, and now is the beginning...
After thinking about it for a while, I made a review on the memorial and ordered someone to send a batch of the newly developed fierce fire oil cabinets developed by the imperial court.
Fire oil cabinets have been around forty years ago. "The History of Wu and Yue" records that in the fifth year of Zhenming in the Later Liang Dynasty, during the battle between the Later Liang Dynasty and the Later Tang Dynasty, flamethrowers using iron cylinders to spray fire oil appeared.
The heat dissipation of this iron cylinder is obviously not as good as that of a copper cylinder. At Luo Youdu's request, the flamethrower was changed to copper, and some details were improved to make it more powerful and spray farther.
It is useless against the highly mobile Khitan cavalry, but it has a miraculous effect against the arrayed infantry of the Dingnan Army.
Luo Youdu took another memorial and opened it. He couldn't help but feel happy. The content of the memorial was to persuade him to issue an edict to draft women to continue the imperial heir.
"It's great to be an emperor!"
Luo Youdu thought for a while, and Zhu said: "No, the court has made a new decision not to disturb the people!"
He put the memorial aside, thought about it, took it over again, and added: "I will make my own decision about the concubine."
Luo Youdu leaned back and leaned on the couch, with the image of Zhe Saihua in his mind.
He could feel that the little girl was also somewhat interested in him.
Thinking about the pair of cantaloupes, my mouth felt a little dry.
Not as good?
Luo Youdu thought for a while and decided to discuss it with Fu Qing'er after handling the government affairs.
Fu Qing'er is the empress, the master of the harem in the world, and asking for her opinion on the matter of accepting a concubine is a basic sign of respect for the empress.
**********
July 11th, night!
Tuoba Tuhai licked his lips, looked back at the long line of grain trucks and tired soldiers behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief: Once this batch of salt and tea arrives safely, it should be of great help to King Xia.
.
The king of Xia was Li Yiyin.
Because the Central Plains was strong, Li Yiyin had been restrained and did not dare to claim the throne.
Now that the jar is broken, the Khitan canonizes him as King of Xia.
Li Yiyin also accepted him and regarded himself as the King of Khitan Xia.
In fact, compared to the Khitan's predicament, the difficulty of settling was the most painful one.
No matter how difficult the Khitan is, its foundation is still there, and it is still the hegemon in the north. It covers the northeast to Sakhalin Island, the Selenge River and the Shilka River in the middle of Mobei in the north, and the Altai Mountains in the west, a territory of thousands of miles.
It's just that Yanyou and Beihan were suddenly lost, and it couldn't operate in the short term.
With the Khitan's national strength, no matter how difficult the problem is, it can still be overcome.
The difficulty was different, Luo Youdu imposed a complete blockade on him.
Originally, most of the five prefectures were covered with yellow sand, and the people were sparsely populated. Except for salt, iron, and tea, they were unable to be self-sufficient in other daily necessities.
They simply did not have the extra national power to deal with the sanctions imposed by the Central Plains, and could only rely on the support of the Khitans.
The two sides signed many treaties, and the Khitan also took good care of this newly acquired younger brother.
However, the situation changed, and the Fugu Ori family came across their trade line, causing them to suffer a lot.
Tuoba Tuhai was born into the Dangxiang Qiang family, and he already felt that his family was somewhat dissatisfied with Li Yiyin.
Faced with the sanctions imposed by the Central Plains, the wealthy families in Dangxiang and Qiang states also suffered heavy losses and complained repeatedly.
Previously, because Li Yiyin could satisfy their interests, they praised Li Yiyin to the heavens.
Now, due to Li Yiyin's mistakes, heavy losses have been caused. Naturally, the trend has turned. Li Yiyin is considered to be incompetent and has offended his father in Zhongyuan.
Tuoba Tuhai is young, only in his early twenties, and full of passion.
He couldn't stand the custom among his clan that they could only share wealth and wealth, but not adversity, so he volunteered to take on this task to help Li Yiyin solve his problems.
In response to Fugu intercepting them many times along the way, this time he marched cautiously from the desert, using the desert to avoid Zhejia's scouts and transport supplies to Datong Yunzhou.
Sure enough, the journey went smoothly, bypassing the boundaries of Fuzhou and successfully exiting the desert.
He planned to travel overnight and enter the territory of the Khitan Qinghe Army as soon as possible.
Suddenly, Tuoba Tuhai noticed that his horse stopped moving forward after sitting down, and looked ahead warily.
Over there were the rolling hills of Quyechuan, where he was going to replenish water.
He squinted his eyes and looked carefully. It seemed that something was approaching rapidly in the shadows formed by the layers of hills.
The sharp and loud sound of breaking through the air struck, Tuoba Tuhai was instantly startled, and shouted with all his strength: "Hurry, hurry, hide!"
After a round of powerful shots, all the torches of the material army were extinguished.
In the dark night, they are moving targets.
An atmosphere of darkness and despair enveloped the battlefield.
Tuoba Tuhai had already got under the salt truck, and now he could only hear the sounds of "pop" and "pop" beside him.
There were either sounds of arrows falling or screams and horses neighing all around, and thick blood filled the battlefield.
"Connect all the supply vehicles together..."
Tuoba Tuhai whispered the command.
Just then, the fire lit up again, but this time it was not lit by them.
Countless torches came from across the sky, followed by bottles and cans.
"boom!"
The flames seemed to explode, spreading crazily in all directions.
Tuoba Tuhai crawled to the ground and escaped from the sea of fire, panting violently. The tension and heat made him sweat like rain...
Looking at the soldiers wailing in the sea of fire, Tuoba Tuhai burst into tears. What was this battle about?
The sound of horse hooves hitting the ground came to my ears again...
The other party had already detoured around the sea of fire and was attacking the group of soldiers who had escaped.
Tuoba Tuhai's eyes turned red instantly and he cursed loudly: "I am Tuoba Tuhai, the commander of King Xia's subordinates. I only know how to shoot arrows and set fire. If you have the guts, come over and fight with me..."
He was wielding a big knife in his hand, and before he could finish his words, his whole body was flying.
Zhe Saihua accelerated her horse and collided with him. The powerful explosive force of the horse directly broke his ribs, which pierced his internal organs, and he died on the spot.
This wave of soldiers from the Dingban Army had just come out of the desert and were already exhausted. When faced with such a blow, they had no power to fight back and were killed in pieces.
Zhe Deqing looked at the supplies in the sea of fire and felt a little distressed. He was directing the rescue and said: "This battle is too extravagant."
Zhe Saihua was dissatisfied and said: "How extravagant. Your Majesty is kind and kind. He specifically ordered not to worry about supplies. Every soldier in the imperial court is more valuable than money. Just use the fire oil when it is needed."
Zhe Deqing smiled and said: "Dad is getting old. He has never fought such a rich war in his life. It's out of date, it's out of date..."
Zhe Saihua said with a smile: "Dad, my daughter is doing well!"
Zhe Deyi sighed slightly and said: "Don't worry, your name will definitely be written in the battle report..."
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Thank you to book friend Yueming Ranxing for the 500 reward, thank you for your support!