Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather

"Your mother and Chengmao are also here. You go and meet them first! Let's have dinner together in the evening, and then return to the capital tomorrow and wait for orders!" Yang Zhengshan said angrily.

He had sent a message to all the generals, asking them to prepare for the expedition, but he did not ask them to come to Chongshan Pass.

None of the other generals came over, but Yang Mingzhi ran over alone. This guy was a little unruly.

"Yes!" Yang Mingzhi responded and exited the room obediently.

Yang Zhengshan was busy at the General Military Mansion until the evening, and returned to the backyard of the General Military Mansion to reunite with his family in the evening.

The backyard of the General Military Mansion still belongs to Zhou Lan, and everyone in the Yang family temporarily lives in the cross-yard.

Anyway, Zhou Lan is alone, and the Yang family living in the cross-yard does not count as occupying a magpie's nest.

It was rare to hold a family banquet in Chongshan Town, so Yu Qingyi invited all the family members over.

The men have other things to do and don't have time to come to the banquet, but most of the women have nothing to do and come over for a get-together when they have time.

This was not the time for a happy gathering, and Yu Qingyi did not make any fuss. He just asked the servants to cook a few tables of food, and everyone gathered together to chat for a while.

In the dead of night, everyone dispersed, and Yang Zhengshan called Song Dashan, Yang Mingzhi and Yang Minghao into the tea room.

The four of them sat together, and Yang Minghao made tea in a polite manner.

Yang Zhengshan looked at them, "Dashan, when will we be able to break through?"

Song Dashan shook his head, "It's still early. We have just touched the threshold. It will probably take several years to get there!"

"What about you?" Yang Zhengshan looked at Yang Mingzhi again.

Yang Mingzhi said: "I'm almost the same as Brother Dashan!"

Yang Zhengshan looked at Yang Minghao again, and Yang Minghao also said: "Me too!"

The three of them now have the ninth level of acquired cultivation, and they have all broken through to the acquired ninth level for several years, and are now condensing the first ray of innate true energy.

Compared with them, the cultivation levels of Yang Mingwu, Yang Chengze, Yang Chengxu and others are worse. A few of them are in the state of just breaking through to the acquired ninth level, or are in the process of breaking through.

Yang Zhengshan thought for a while, took out three jade boxes and handed them to them, "Three yellow plums, take them tonight!"

The cultivation of these three people is still a little bit behind, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Once they leave Yang Zhengshan, the spiritual spring water they can drink will be much less. Even if Yang Zhengshan often sends them various drinks and tea, they will still fall behind.

Their cultivation level is far behind Yang Mingcheng, Wu Zheng and Wu Zhan.

Yang Mingwu, Yang Chengze and Yang Chengxu fell even further behind.

But it doesn't matter. Yang Mingwu is a little older and is only in his forties now. Yang Chengze and Yang Chengxu are only thirty-five years old now.

They still have a long time to break through to the innate realm.

The three of them looked at the jade box in front of them and were all stunned.

"Dad, where did you get so many three-yellow plums? Didn't you say there is only one per year?" Yang Minghao asked in surprise.

"Don't worry about it, just eat it!" Yang Zhengshan said casually.

Yang Minghao picked up the three-yellow plum and bit it down.

"I thought it would take several years for it to be my turn, hehe, I didn't expect it to be so soon!" Yang Minghao laughed.

Song Dashan looked at the three-yellow plum in his hand and looked at Yang Zhengshan hesitantly.

Yang Zhengshan saw his thoughts and said with a smile: "Eat it, you and I don't have to be polite!"

Song Dashan smiled naively and just said, "Thank you, Lord Marquis!"

He has a stupid mouth, and even if he is asked to say some words of thanks, he can't say it.

Yang Mingzhi also ate the three-yellow plum, "Dad, is this a reward from your majesty?"

Yang Zhengshan collected the leftover cores they had eaten and said, "Don't worry about their origins. Practice hard and strive to break through to the innate realm as soon as possible!"

"Your eldest brother is about to break through, don't let him fall behind too much."

Yang Minghao said: "It's better to follow dad. I feel like I've missed a lot of good food!"

Yang Zhengshan glanced at him, "Is there anything good I didn't give you?"

"Hehe, I'm just talking!" Yang Minghao laughed.

Yang Zhengshan stood up and said, "You can stay here to practice tonight."

Just after eating the three yellow plums, it is the best time to practice. If everything goes well, the innate true energy can be condensed overnight. If not, it may take two or three months to condense it.

This depends on the depth of the three people's foundation. The deeper the foundation, the faster the speed of condensing the innate true energy. The shallower the foundation, the slower the speed of condensation.

If the background is too shallow, it will not even be able to condense the innate true energy.

After a night of silence, Yang Zhengshan came to Zhou Lan's yard again the next morning.

Zhou Lan had woken up from her coma and changed into neat clothes under the service of the maid. However, her body was still very weak and she needed help even to walk.

Seeing Yang Zhengshan, Zhou Lan said a little depressed: "I didn't expect that I would have to trouble you to handle it personally in the end!"

Yang Zhengshan smiled and said: "What? You don't want me to come?"

"That's not true. I thought I could destroy the Ulliang Hu tribe. If nothing happens, I will ask the court for orders to conquer the Ulliang Hu tribe in three years!" Zhou Landao said.

This is not a boast she made. Now that Chongshan Town has strong soldiers and horses, and sufficient money and food, if it accumulates for another three years, it may be possible to annihilate the Wuliang Hu tribe in one fell swoop.

When the time comes for the court to exert more force and ask Beiyuan Town and Longbei Town to send troops together, the Uliang Hu tribe may really be unable to withstand it.

"This actually makes me feel like picking peaches!" Yang Zhengshan said.

Zhou Lan sighed slightly, "What are you going to do?"

"I am worried, this Menghe Mountain Que is a big trouble!" Yang Zhengshan said distressedly.

A smile appeared on Zhou Lan's somewhat pale face, and she said: "Actually, Menghe Mountain can also be bypassed. Not only can it be bypassed, but besides the Menghe Mountain Que, there is also a road that can cross Menghe Mountain!"

Yang Zhengshan was startled and said in surprise: "Really!"

"Of course!" Zhou Lan smiled.

Yang Zhengshan asked: "Where can I cross?"

Zhou Lan said to the maid beside him: "Go and move the box under the bookshelf in my study!"

The maid bowed and went to the study to get the box.

Zhou Landuo Yang Zhengshan said: "I have sent many people to Menghe Mountain over the years, and even built a small tribe near Menghe Mountain!"

"Wait! What does small tribe mean?" Yang Zhengshan asked in confusion.

Zhou Lan smiled slyly and said: "We just found more than a hundred soldiers to dress up as the Hu tribe, and entered the territory of the Uuliang Hu tribe from the snowy fields. Now they have settled in a canyon in the north of Menghe Mountain!"

Yang Zhengshan was stunned that he could still operate like this!

"Won't it be exposed?"

Zhou Landao said: "No, because there are many unknown tribes in the north of the Uliang Hu tribe. Those tribes can be said to be the Uuliang Hu tribe, or they can be said to be the Hu tribe in the snowy land."

"There are even many Ulliang Hu tribes who come from the land of snow. There is no clear dividing line between the territory of the Ulang Hu tribe and the land of snow. Hu tribes from the land of snow often run into the territory of the Ulang Hu tribe. "

"And the Ulliang Hu tribe will not pay attention to these small tribes. As long as they do not invade the territory of the big tribes, no one will care about their origins and identities!"

Yang Zhengshan sweated, "I didn't expect it could be like this!"

He never expected that he could actually arrange for a small tribe to infiltrate the territory of the Ulliang Hu tribe. This was normal. After all, when he was in Chongshan Town, he had not yet infiltrated the Ulliang Hu tribe. However, Zhou Lan did it the second year after arriving in Chongshan Town. Begin to gradually inquire about the news about the Ulliang Hu people.

While talking, the maid fetched the wooden box.

Yang Zhengshan opened the wooden box, which contained a very detailed map of Mount Menghe.

Zhou Lan was weak and could only sit on the couch and said: "It is not difficult to get around Menghe Mountain. You can get around it in the snowfields in the north of Menghe Mountains. In summer and autumn, the snowfields are not very cold, which is enough to get around." Tens of thousands of soldiers went around."

"But to go around it, we need to walk more than two thousand miles. Although the journey is not difficult, it is too far. If a large army goes on an expedition, it will cost a lot of food and grass along the way."

"In addition to being able to go around from the north, you can also go around from the south. You can go all the way south along the Tuwusheng River, which is almost a hundred miles north of Dasheng City in Beiyuan Town!"

"But that side is the territory of the Tatar tribe. Rather than going around, it's better to fight through it. Moreover, the Tatar tribe has also built many fortresses there. The difficulty of getting there is not much easier than from the Monge Mountain Que."

"The shortcut I'm talking about is more than a hundred miles north of Monge Mountain. There, you can cross Monge Mountain along the narrow ravines and cliffs. The disadvantage is that the road is difficult to travel. It can even be said that there is no road. Both people and horses I can go there, but I can’t carry a lot of food and grass.”

Yang Zhengshan found the path Zhou Lan mentioned on the map. Looking at the route above, Yang Zhengshan felt a headache.

The east-to-west span of Mount Menghe is only three hundred miles, and the winding road is probably a thousand miles long.

Going here is actually no easier than going around the snowfield.

Zhou Lan continued: "If we go through this road, we can directly attack the Red Thorn tribe by surprise. Although we cannot conquer the pass in Menghe Mountain, it will be enough to turn the Red Thorn tribe upside down."

The Red Thorn tribe does not only have one tribe. As a huge ethnic group, the Red Thorn tribe has a population of more than 100,000. They have more than a dozen tribes of various sizes.

And there are many small and medium-sized tribes that rely on the Red Thorn Tribe.

"Actually, my previous idea was that we would launch the attack and the Uliang Royal Court would defend. In this way, we could divide the army into four groups to advance, involving the main force of the Uliang Royal Court at Menghe Mountain along the way, and the remaining three groups would go around or go separately. The path passes through the Monge Mountains.”

"But now the Uuliang Hu tribe has taken the initiative to attack. They must have blocked the south of Menghe Mountain. We can only go around from the north!"

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly, "I understand, these two paths are enough. Leave the rest to me, and you can rest peacefully and recuperate!"

A rough plan has emerged in his mind. Although this plan has not been perfected yet, he feels that this plan should be feasible.

Neither of them mentioned the Ula tribe. The reason why they did not mention the Ula tribe was because they did not take the Ula tribe into their eyes at all.

Even though the Ula tribe is called one of the eight major tribes of the Ulliang royal court, in fact, the Liangwang tribe and the Ula tribe are just a few of the eight tribes.

Cui Liang's Liangwang tribe was just established in recent years. Although Wutuo gave him many small tribes, in fact these tribes are relatively poor tribes and do not have much strength themselves.

The Ula tribe is better. The Ula tribe is a tribe of the Hu tribe in the East China Sea. Later, the Hu tribe in the East China Sea was destroyed and they took refuge in the Wuliang royal court. However, compared with the other six tribes, the Ula tribe is much weaker.

Now that the Ula tribe's territory is on the east side of Menghe Mountain, they are used by Uto as cannon fodder to delay time.

Wu Tuo did not have high expectations for the Ula tribe. In Wu Tuo's heart, it was enough for the Ula tribe to hold back the army in Chongshan Town for ten days and a half.

So neither Yang Zhengshan, Zhou Lan, nor Wutuo paid too much attention to the Ula tribe.

After getting Zhou Lan's map, Yang Zhengshan perfected his plan while preparing for war in Chongshan Pass.

"Dad, the war horses have been obtained! A total of 30,000 horses, all of which have just reached adulthood!"

In the general's mansion, Yang Minghao reported to Yang Zhengshan.

What Chongshan Town lacks the least now is war horses.

At present, the town's five battalions have nearly 30,000 war horses, and the various reinforcement battalions also have nearly 50,000 war horses. In addition, the guards in various places have a lot of war horses.

And there are large horse farms in the north, raising more than 200,000 war horses.

The reason why there are so many war horses is that after the Donghai Hu tribe was destroyed, Chongshan Town seized a large number of war horses, and secondly, after the Donghai Hu tribe was destroyed, many horses became wild horses. In the past ten years, these wild horses have continued to multiply in the grasslands, and many horse herds have appeared.

The third is the horse policy of Chongshan Town. Pang Tang and Zhou Lan have been encouraging the people of Chongshan Town to build horse farms in the north, and also encourage the people to raise horses themselves, and even worry that horse traders will transport the horses of Chongshan Town to the hinterland of Darong for sale.

This has caused many people and military households in Chongshan Town to raise horses, and has also caused the price of horses in Chongshan Town to continue to fall.

To this day, a poor horse that can pull a cart in Chongshan Town is only a dozen taels of silver. You should know that when Yang Zhengshan was still in Chongshan Town, a poor horse would cost at least more than 20 taels of silver.

The price of war horses has also dropped a lot. A good horse that can be a war horse has dropped from 70 or 80 taels to less than 50 taels now.

In recent years, after Zhou Lan established Dinghuwei, he even asked the soldiers of Dinghuwei to round up several herds of wild horses and picked up tens of thousands of horses for free.

"Distribute the war horses. One war horse per ordinary infantryman, two war horses per heavy-armored infantryman, and one war horse per auxiliary soldier!"

"In short, make sure every soldier can ride a horse for a long distance!"

Yang Zhengshan ordered Yang Minghao.

"Yes, I'll arrange it now!" Yang Minghao said.

A large number of war horses require a large amount of horse feed. Although having war horses can increase the speed of infantrymen, it will bring greater pressure to logistics.

Although Yang Zhengshan does not plan to recruit civilian laborers, it does not mean that he has no grain transport team to use. Don't forget that there are 20,000 engineers under the command of the general's mansion.

These 20,000 engineers were used to build roads and cities before, and now they can serve as civilian laborers to transport grain.

In addition to the engineers, the Dusi Yamen can also recruit 20,000 soldiers to serve as civilian laborers.

In this way, there are 40,000 civilian laborers responsible for transporting grain and various supplies.

If Yang Zhengshan mobilized all the elite soldiers in Chongshan Town, that would be 30,000 town flag battalions and 40,000 reinforcement battalions. In fact, 40,000 civilians were far from enough.

There were 10,000 soldiers fighting in the front, and 10,000 civilians were needed in the rear to transport all kinds of supplies. At the same time, a large number of civilians were needed to follow the army to help build camps and build siege equipment.

When Yang Zhengshan attacked Chongshan Pass, he brought 2,000 engineers, and then Pang Tang successively sent nearly 20,000 civilians to help build various weapons.

When conquering the Hu tribe in Donghai, more civilians were mobilized. At that time, the livestock and supplies seized by Yang Zhengshan were transported back by soldiers and civilians.

So when the army went out, a large number of civilians were indispensable to help behind it. The longer the battle line was, the more civilians were needed.

Under normal circumstances, 40,000 civilians were far from enough for the 70,000 elite troops.

However, Yang Zhengshan did not intend to fight according to normal thinking. According to normal thinking, he had to solve the Menghe Mountain Gate, otherwise he would not be able to transport a large amount of food and grass to the west of Menghe Mountain.

The small road could not transport food and grass, and the detour was too far. If there were many civilians, the food and grass consumed along the way would not be a small amount.

Yang Zhengshan did not intend to fight Menghe Mountain Gate to the death, so he did not need so many civilians.