Chapter 48: Han Sui Mobilizes His Troops

  In the blink of an eye, October has arrived.

  Everything has been going smoothly according to Li Zhong's plan during this period.

  Thanks to the hard work of Kemu Ke and other two hunting teams, after camping in Helan Mountain for nearly two months, they finally captured a number of qingchui, making the Qingjia War Rider tribe much larger.

  By the end of September, the number of green armored warhorses in the pasture, large and small, had exceeded fifty heads!

  Another mountainous warhorse, the scale of the mountain wolf cavalry is growing, and it's even more exciting. Because of the sufficient supply of raw materials such as mother body, deputy body, etc., this tribe has already expanded to 150 heads!

  Now if a war were to break out, Li Zhong would at least be able to easily mobilize over thirty Qīng Jiǎo War Riders and one hundred Shān Yuè Wolf Riders!

  Compared with the main war horses, the population development span of various special war horses is even larger.

  Due to the influence of growth accelerators, Red Jade Birds have begun to infest the grasslands. Thorny Pigs now give birth to seven or eight piglets per litter, and their numbers have also exceeded five hundred!

  Even Gigalith now has ten heads!

  There are also Blue-throated Macaques, and all the adults have given birth to two offspring, with a total of 15 individuals!

  What excited Li Zhong the most was that the Food Beast had also been synthesized, although there were only over thirty of them now. As long as the original material mothers and subsidiary bodies were constantly captured, as long as the money was sufficient, through the War Horse Hall, its scale would definitely grow rapidly.

  The long-term development of various war horses has made Li Zhēn smile continuously during this period. This portends that the power in his hands is getting stronger and stronger, and the depth of the pasture is getting deeper and thicker.

  Of course, accordingly, the money in the system is spent like flowing water, and now it's almost exhausted.

  Apart from this, the tax policy of Lingzhou City has also been gradually accepted. The construction of the sewer system in Lingzhou City is also basically completed.

  Under the leadership of Mr. Li, the academies in various towns are also nearing completion. At most, it will take another month for the academies to open their doors and start imparting knowledge.

  For this reason, Li Zhong specially let Zhou Fei select personnel for each town and each pavilion to publicize the academy, so that all people in Lingzhou County know about the existence of the academy, as a preparation for recruitment.

  In terms of military strength, all the soldiers under Li Zhong's command totaled five thousand!

  Among them, 1,500 people have met the requirements and been awarded Class A equipment, becoming elite soldiers.

  These soldiers are not only excellent in training, but also the mountain bandits and horse thieves in the Lingzhou area have almost disappeared, which is also their credit.

  Even the surrounding Qiang people's small tribes have also converged a lot. The most obvious manifestation is that when these Qiang people come to Lingzhou City to do business, they are more disciplined.

  The production of armor is increasing, and the scale is getting larger. Even though 1,500 sets of armor have been equipped to the army, there are still hundreds of sets in stock in the warehouse.

  Moreover, with the birth of the mineral-eating beasts, the extremely labor-intensive mining work also gradually became easier. Those thirty mineral-eating beasts produced more secondary minerals every day than three hundred people working non-stop without eating or drinking.

  Li Zheng witnessed the mining process of the ore-eating beasts. Those small dog-sized creatures with sharp heads, razor-sharp claws and scales all over their bodies used the corrosive liquid secreted from their mouths in conjunction with their sharp claws to dig up the ore with incredible ease!

  They swallow the coarse ore and what comes out is sub-grade minerals that have been digested once. This greatly reduces the pressure on transportation - it can refine the same weight of pure mineral ore, the weight and volume of the coarse ore are more than twice that of the sub-grade minerals!

  As long as there are enough Food Miners, the efficiency of mining will be at least ten times higher than manual mining! If the transportation problem is also solved properly, the efficiency will continue to improve!

  In this way, the forging center can go all out. The army under Li Zhong's command will soon complete its replacement and at least surpass the enemy in terms of equipment!

  Everything is developing in a good direction, but at present, Li Zhong is still busy running around non-stop. From the end of September to October is the time for planting winter wheat.

  Promoting rapeseed planting has been put on the agenda.

  The fields under Li Zhēng's name, plus the land near the pasture, still have nearly 10,000 mu left. The others have all been allocated to the refugees who flowed into Lingzhou County from various places in Liangzhou.

  In Li Zhong's plan, they all have to plant canola this winter.

  Of course, many people do not understand and even have an aversion to Li Zhong's promotion. This is also inevitable. Before seeing the benefits, anyone will always be on guard against unfamiliar things.

  For this, Li Zhong even had to come out in person to explain to them and even made a guarantee.

  Compared with ordinary people, Lingzhou's powerful families have a completely opposite attitude.

  They have all basically tasted the flavor of sweet potatoes and are very fond of that delicious taste. At the same time, they also learned from Zhou Fei's mouth about the huge yield of this crop, so how could they possibly reject it?

  Since mid-September, the threshold of the Hu Qiang school lieutenant's mansion has almost been trampled. Zhou Fei was annoyed all day and scratched his head, complaining to Li Zheng several times.

  By the end of September, Can Mai's promotion work has basically come to an end. Among the 60,000 mu planned for planting, 50,000 mu were used by Li Zheng himself, and the remaining 10,000 mu were scattered in the hands of various powerful families in Lingzhou.

  By early October, the winter wheat planting is basically completed.

  Xun Yu has been watching Li Zuo's continuous movements over the past two months.

  But he never said anything, just like when chatting with Li Zhuang, "Maybe I don't agree, but I have no right to interfere."

  Just as Li Zhēng thought he could relax for a while, Zhou Lín passed on an alarming message to him.

  The rebel forces of Han Sui stationed in Anding Commandery are making a move!

  Li Zhong did not dare to slack off, and while instructing Zhou Lin to intensify the investigation of the rebel army's movements, he hoped to fully understand the rebel army's intentions. He then hastily summoned all his generals to discuss countermeasures and assign tasks.

  In the overall situation, Lingzhou is weak and the rebel army is strong. However, with various parties involved, Li Jing believes that even if Han Xi's rebel army targets Beidi County this time, the number of troops deployed will not be too many.

  According to Li Zhong's estimate, there will be no more than 20,000 to 30,000 troops at most, and they must have divided their forces.

  Beidi County is strip-shaped, running northwest to southeast. If troops are sent out from Anding, the rebels will divide their forces into two routes, one going southeast and the other attacking northwest.

  Even if we assume that our guesses are true, the Lingzhou in the northwest of Beidi County will face at most more than 10,000 enemies.

  Li Zhuang was very optimistic about this.

  A thought flashed through his mind and he made up his mind.

  Take the initiative!

  Taking cavalry as the main force and infantry as the auxiliary, proactively leaving Lingzhou, intercepting and weakening the rebel army in sections, finally achieving the effect of destroying them with one blow.

  With Zhang Shan as the commander of the 30 Qingjia Cavalry, under his command are thirty Qingjia Cavalry. With Bai Lang as the commander of the Mountain Wolf Cavalry, under his command are one hundred Mountain Wolf Cavalry. With Nuo Luo as the commander of the War Horse Light Cavalry, under his command are three hundred War Horse Light Cavalry.

  Li Ding led 1,200 elite heavy armored infantry and light infantry archers.

  As for the new soldiers who have not yet completed their equipment changeover, they will be left to guard the strategic points around Lingzhou and await orders.

  As for logistics, it was handed over to Zhou Fei and Zhou Lin. However, Li Zhong's army did not have high demands on logistics. When they went out to battle, each person carried a month's worth of dry rations, unless it was an unusually long and intense war, in which case a specialized logistics team was not needed.

  Zhou Lin and Zhou Fei were just a pair of uncle and nephew, merely serving as a precautionary backup in case of an emergency.

  The whole discussion and decision-making process was watched by Xun Yu on the side. It wasn't until Li Zong had given all the orders that he brought up his request to follow the army into battle.

  Li Zheng thought for a moment and immediately agreed.

  Xun Yu's true ability, Li Zong was not very clear, but Li Zong believed that with Xun Yu following the army, he probably didn't need to rack his brains most of the time.

  However, what made Li Zhong cry and laugh was that within half a day of sending troops, the fastest mountain wolf cavalry had not yet reached their designated location when astonishing news came from the front.

  However, after the rebels of Anding converged, apart from a portion that set up camp at the border between Anding and Beidi to take a defensive stance, the majority of the rebel forces surprisingly marched eastward!

  That is to say, Han Sui's goal in mobilizing troops this time was not Beidi County at all, but the Great Han Dynasty!

  Li Zuo and Xun Yu looked at each other in silence upon hearing this news.

  Seriously treated with great fanfare, but ended up in such a situation. I don't know whether to be happy or helpless.

  Riding on the green armor warhorse, Xun Yu pondered and said to Li Jing: "Although the situation is clear at present, General Li must not be too careless. Before the specific reason is known, we still need to guard against the rebels' tactics of creating confusion."

  Li Zheng nodded slightly.

  Han Sui, who had been suppressed for several months, suddenly took up arms. If the reason behind this is not clarified, it would be difficult to make a prepared judgment.

  If the judgment is wrong, it may cause huge damage to Li Zhong himself.

  Li Zhēng immediately wrote a letter and sent it to Zhou Lin via the Blue Bird, asking him to intensify his investigation and get to the bottom of things. At the same time, the previously formulated strategy and tactics also needed to be revised accordingly.

  Since the rebel's goal is still uncertain, the tactic of taking the initiative to attack must be stopped. Li Zhong would not provoke the rebels for no reason and inspire them to attack Beidi County.

  But at the same time, we can't neglect our defenses either.

  He then ordered the vanguard cavalry units to quickly return and gather at Fuping.

  Fu Ping had long been in a state of no government, and the masters here were the wealthy and powerful families who had not yet moved out of the city. Li Zhong naturally took this as a temporary military camp, and the wealthy and powerful families did not dare to obstruct him, and many people expressed their support for some grain and financial resources.

  The troops gathered in Fuping, and Li Jing let Nuo lead a thousand elite infantry to garrison here, paying attention to the movements of the rebel army on the border of Beidi County at all times. He himself led a group of cavalry and the remaining 500 elite infantry, preparing to withdraw from Fuping.