In the Song Dynasty, there was no law or order.

Although Fan Zhongyan is also the prime minister, he has not been in the Constitutional Yuan often recently.

Because he is responsible for some issues related to the restructuring of the army, he often has to communicate with the Ministry of War and the Privy Council to create a new system for the entire army.

According to Zhao Jun's plan, the first step is to eliminate the corrupt elements and the old and the weak in the army, and keep the number of standing imperial troops at 400,000. The local Xiang army responsible for maintaining the deterrence of ethnic minorities is maintained at 200,000.

In this way, the number of soldiers in the Song Dynasty was only 1,259,000, but in fact there were only more than 800,000 in the Song Dynasty. The number of troops was only 600,000. The rest were retired and re-employed.

Then the upper and lower levels were reformed, setting up one capital with one hundred people, five capitals with one battalion, five battalions with one school, and three to five schools as one army. At each level, there are permanent captains, battalion commanders, captains, and generals.

The overall reform tends to be the military system of the Han Dynasty, and it is also the military reform of the Song Dynasty. As a result, the number of an army ranges from 7,500 to 12,500. The generals are responsible for maintaining daily training, the Privy Council is responsible for deploying troops, and the Ministry of War is responsible for promotion, rewards and punishments, and logistics.

When the war comes, a group army general is temporarily established, similar to a corps commander, to command three to five corps in combat. Then, an economic and strategic envoy is established on the general of the group army, which can be understood as a marshal, responsible for the combat command of the entire theater.

If the Liao Kingdom comes to Hebei to start a war again, Fan Zhongyan will continue to preside over the battle. He will be equivalent to the marshal of the main battle, Zhang Kang will be equivalent to the commander of the group army below, and Di Qing will be equivalent to the commander of the first army.

In this way, if Fan Zhongyan had 200,000 troops under his command, it would be equivalent to commanding five or six group armies and twenty legions.

In this way, it will not only facilitate coordination and command, but also make it easier to fight. It also allows the generals of the army to regularly train their soldiers in the army, so that there will be no more situations where the soldiers do not know the generals and the soldiers.

But planning is planning, and actual operation is not that simple.

It may take a long time to rebuild the entire military system, so Fan Zhongyan must always be in charge of the overall situation. He has recently been running back and forth between the Ministry of War, the Privy Council, and the Bianliang garrison barracks.

However, today he suddenly ran back to the Constitutional Yuan and told him something big happened.

This made everyone feel nervous.

"Are the Liao people coming again?"

Lu Yijian asked hurriedly.

During this period of military reform, the prime ministers were most worried about the Liao people attacking.

After all, this is indeed the time when the Song Dynasty is at its weakest.

If the firearms army cannot stop the Liao people, then the ordinary Song army, which is currently undergoing restructuring and lacks a large number of middle and lower-level officers, will be in big trouble.

The only good news is that there are many cannons on Hebei Road, and most of them are piled on the city walls. Even if the Liao people attack, they don't need to worry about losing Hebei.

"no."

Fan Zhongyan shook his head and said, "It's the Xixia people who came here."

Zhao Jun patted the case and said, "Li Yuanhao is so brave. You didn't hurt him last time, right? Now he dares to do something wrong again."

"That's not true."

Fan Zhongyan smiled and said: "He did not violate our border."

Everyone rolled their eyes, and Yan Shu tactfully advised: "Xiwen, next time you have something to say, just tell the truth directly. Don't be surprised."

"All right."

Fan Zhongyan immediately explained the situation.

Finally, he added: "After analysis, Xixia probably wanted to attack Qingtang to test our situation. If we can't send troops to help and defeat them, I'm afraid the Liao Kingdom will also go south."

"Well, this is a question you can think of with your toes. It may even be that the Liao Kingdom is instigating this Xixia attack. Look at the strength of our army."

Zhao Jun thought for a while and then said immediately: "The latest news we have now is that the Xixia people are attacking, but this was more than ten days ago. No one knows what the situation in the northwest is like now. Yes, but in order to prevent accidents, we must make preparations immediately.”

"Be prepared to start a war with Liao and Xixia at the same time."

Lu Yijian smiled bitterly, shook his head and said, "If possible, I really don't want to start a fight."

Xixia is approaching with great force. Although they have deployed many troops and horses on Shaanxi Road, it will definitely be too late for temporary defense. Command and dispatch must be done immediately.

The current situation is that the Song Dynasty army is in a period of weakness. If the border army does not respond in time and allows Xixia to capture Lanzhou and other places and launch a siege on Qingtang, then something will happen to the ally Xisiluo.

Therefore, the Song Dynasty must be saved.

This is also to prevent Xixia from discovering the truth and uniting with the Liao Kingdom to move southward.

The peace had only been less than four years, and the war was about to start again. This was another big problem for the Song Dynasty's domestic economy and governance, which had just improved.

"There is no other way. If people want to fight, then fight. Since they dare to break the contract, they must bear the price of breaking the contract."

Zhao Jun pondered for a moment and said: "Lao Fan, start mobilizing for war immediately. In the afternoon we will ask the officials for instructions. You first take the reorganized army to Hebei and prepare to fight the Liao Kingdom. Over in Xixia, continue to let Pang Ji go."

"What do you think?"

Fan Zhongyan asked.

"The fighting power of Xixia is not as good as that of Liao. The imperial court will definitely transfer the main force to Hebei. Then Xixia will focus on defense."

Zhao Jun said: "After defeating the Liao Kingdom, we will go back to deal with Xixia. This time we must destroy Xixia."

"Wanting a war to destroy the country?"

"Otherwise, this guy will jump on our heads."

Zhao Jun's eyes flashed with a hint of coldness.

In fact, he doesn't want to start a war now.

Because the Song Dynasty has developed rapidly in recent years.

Especially after the introduction of sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, peanuts and other crops, productivity increased explosively.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, through the introduction of Champa rice, even if the grain distribution was uneven, the productivity of Champa rice was so great that it was not a problem to feed one or two million people.

Sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn, and peanuts are the icing on the cake. Unless the Song Dynasty lifted the tax on dingkou and divided the dingkou into acres, resulting in large-scale population growth, otherwise, these crops are unlikely to become the staple food of the people.

However, the introduction of these things will still greatly increase farmers' food production. Even if they cannot be used as staple food, they can enrich the dining table and even be used as livestock food to feed chickens, pigs, cattle, sheep, etc.

Peanuts can also extract oil.

Therefore, the overall social development and people's lives have definitely improved, which has solved the problem of food and clothing for a large number of people, allowing them to put food on the table and avoid going hungry.

What's left is overall wealth, which changed the wealth of the Song Dynasty from a pyramid structure to a rhombus structure.

This direction will not be easy to achieve in later generations.

So what about the ancient Song Dynasty?

If everything goes well, the Song Dynasty will become the Mold Emperor in future generations, even stronger than the Mold Emperor.

As long as the Song Dynasty is given more than ten years, foreign trade will continue to absorb raw materials from all over the world, process them into goods for sale to the outside world, accumulate original capital, and build domestic improvements in all aspects.

By then, everyone in the Song Dynasty army will have guns in their hands, each army will have artillery, steam engine train construction, road construction, and infrastructure will continue to emerge.

Li Yuanhao and Yelu Zong really saw the muskets and artillery of the Song Dynasty, as well as the Maxim machine gun, so they had to call Zhao Zhen their father.

It's a pity that people don't give them time to develop.

But even so, Zhao Jun is confident that he can deal with Xixia and the Liao Kingdom. The Liao Kingdom is difficult to pacify, but the current steel production in the Song Dynasty has increased sharply, and destroying the Xixia Kingdom should not be a big problem.

He looked around and said: "Immediately send a message to the Hebei side. Nowadays, steel is mainly used to make muskets and artillery, as well as civilian kitchen knives, hoes and other items to increase productivity. Take a break from these and let them immediately turn around to make armor, Swords and spears.”

"Aren't you making firearms anymore?"

Wang Zeng asked.

"Firearms are limited by raw materials. Once the gunpowder is missing, the firearm becomes a stick. Therefore, the transition from cold weapons to heated weapons is still the main one. To transform the entire army into hot weapons, it will take at least more than ten years to accumulate gunpowder."

Zhao Jun pointed out the problem: "Steel refrigeration weapons and armor can already put us a long way ahead of Xixia and Liao. Except for the firearms battalion, the rest of the troops will use steel weapons first. Let's start the defensive counterattack this year. My request is simple, Xixia must be destroyed next year.”

"Um."

Everyone thought there was no problem, so they nodded.

Immediately, Zhao Jun and the others began to discuss the specific plan, and they would go to Zhao Zhen to confirm it in the afternoon.

In this way, subordinates can raise problems and solve them. The boss Zhao Zhen is much more relaxed. He only needs to give orders and let Fan Zhongyan lead the troops to Hebei.

However, at three quarters to noon, that is, at 12 noon, they had not eaten yet and were continuing to chat about foreign war strategies. Zhang Kang, the deputy Privy Council envoy outside the door, hurried in again and said: "Report!"

He still retained his military habits.

Fan Zhongyan glanced at the door and said, "What happened?"

"Six hundred miles hastened, Xixia was repulsed."

Zhang Kang walked in and said.

Li Yuanhao attacked Lanzhou on August 30, but was repulsed by Wang Shiyun with small steel cannons.

Then on September 2nd, they invaded again, and Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu led the firearms battalion and the small steel cannon to protect Wang Shiyun. They defeated the Xixia army's rear troops, leading to a complete collapse and defeat of Xixia.

Under normal circumstances, it is more than 1,100 kilometers from Lanzhou to Kaifeng. If the 800-mile journey is expedited, that is 400 kilometers per day, and it will take about two or three days to arrive.

It's just that the situation in Guweizhai is not reported directly from Guweizhai to Bianliang. Instead, the situation needs to be reported from Guweizhai to Qinfeng Road first.

After handing it in layer by layer, several days passed before it reached the hands of the Qinfeng Road envoy. He had to immediately send someone to find out the situation. Every time he came back, it was naturally delayed for a few more days.

So after the news was confirmed, Qin Feng Road wanted to mobilize troops and generals, and at the same time wrote a report and sent it to Bianliang. This caused Bianliang to learn the news twelve days later.

However, there was a gap of two days between the start of the fight and the defeat, which was basically a matter of front and back. This was related to the speed of reporting from Guwei Village, so Qinfeng Road had just reported the news of the start of the fight, and the news of the defeat immediately came from Guwei Village Regarding the matter, I had no choice but to issue a new official document.

"What's the specific situation?"

After hearing Zhang Kang say that Xixia had been repelled, everyone was immediately curious.

Xixia attacked Lanzhou. They didn't deploy any troops at the border of Lanzhou. How could they defeat Xixia so smoothly?

Zhang Kang said with a smile: "When Sun Guangyi, the governor of the ancient Weizhai tribe, went to lead troops to rescue Lanzhou, he happened to encounter two firearms battalions going to Huining to garrison, so they pulled them over to join the battle. Unexpectedly, it had a miraculous effect."

As he spoke, he told how the firearms battalion protected the small steel cannon squad, and how the Song army used small steel cannons to blast the Xixia army's rear line, resulting in a large-scale rout of the Xixia army.

After hearing this, everyone laughed. Lu Yijian laughed and said: "Yuan Hao is really vulnerable. An army of tens of thousands was defeated by a few thousand people."

"Han Long often said that Sun Quan is Sun Shiwan and Zhang Liao is Zhang Babai. It seems that Yuan Hao is no different from Sun Quan. We also have our own Babai."

"This battle really enhances the prestige of our Song Dynasty. After the battle, I am afraid that Liao and Xixia will never dare to invade again."

"Then do we still deploy our troops and generals now?"

Everyone was overjoyed. Who would have thought that they could defeat Xixia with a few thousand troops and almost no major losses, and let Li Yuanhao return home in defeat?

If this spreads out, it will not only boost the morale of the domestic military and public opinion, but also the surrounding countries will once again look down upon the strength of the Song Dynasty.

Even returning to the heyday of the Han and Tang Dynasties is still unclear.

However, Zhao Jun pondered for a moment and said: "Don't be too happy, everyone. This battle is full of chance. We still need to be prepared for Xixia and Liao."

"Oh? Isn't this a great victory for firearms?"

Wang Zeng wondered.

"It can't be said to be a big victory. The accident factor is more important. We should clear our heads."

Zhao Jun said.

After listening to Zhang Kang's story, he skipped the frame of Dasheng and looked at the problem, and he would find the key to the problem.

In fact, the whole process is not that the musketeers are powerful. Even if the musketeers fire in three stages, the firepower network formed cannot allow them to deal with 10,000 cavalry with a thousand people.

The problem is that they are not dealing with cavalry who are not afraid of death, but an ordinary army who is afraid of death.

Everyone is afraid.

The comrades around him kept falling down strangely. No matter how brave he was, he should still be afraid.

Therefore, Zeng Yong and Zhang Wenwu first blocked the enemy's siege.

Then Wang Shiyun launched a death-style bombardment. After exploding a small steel cannon and scrapping six of them, he defeated the Xixia army under continuous firepower.

Therefore, the whole process was actually full of chance. If Li Yuanhao paid more attention to the rear, or if Xixia's encirclement and suppression troops were not afraid of death, I am afraid that Lanzhou City would have changed hands by this time.

So Zhao Jun didn't think that they could sit back and relax, whether they should be more cautious or cautious.

"Then how should we counteract Xixia's behavior?"

Fan Zhongyan asked.

"Let's do this. Lao Fan won't go to Hebei first and let Zhang Kang go."

Zhao Jun thought for a while and said: "Be on guard against Liao and Xixia first. We will hold our troops on hold for the time being and wait and see the reaction from Xixia. If they don't come forward to apologize, we will mobilize our troops next year and use this incident as an excuse to destroy them." If they apologize to Xixia."

"How to say?"

"Then we'll beat them up hard and make them pay the annual coins. If they don't agree, we'll kill them next year."

"Asking Xixia to pay annual coins? This is unheard of."

Everyone looked at each other.

In the past, the Song Dynasty gave others annual coins. Even if envoys from foreign countries came to pay tribute, the Song Dynasty would have to give more generous gifts in return.

Now it's the other way around.

"The rules will still have to be changed in the future."

Zhao Jun narrowed his eyes and said: "That is to say, the army is still in the restructuring period. After the restructuring is completed, it will need to be well trained, otherwise I will want to destroy Xixia this year."

It is still inconvenient to use force now. After all, the internal reform and rectification has not yet been completed. Sending troops hastily will only disrupt the original plan.

And the main thing is.

Once a full-scale attack on Xixia is carried out, the Liao Kingdom will also come to an end.

Now that the Song Dynasty is not capable of annexing the Liao Kingdom, and the two sides go to full-scale war, there is a high probability that the Song Dynasty may destroy Xixia, but it will fall into a long-term war with the Liao Kingdom.

If the war lasts for several years, even if it only lasts for one or two years, it will be a bad thing for the people's livelihood in the country, which has already improved.

Therefore, the current overall policy is still focused on development.

Accumulate grain widely, build walls high, and slowly become king.

Let’s wait until the Song Dynasty becomes stronger in a few years.

Now that Xixia has been defeated, let's look at Xixia's reaction.

It would be easy if the other party did nothing. When the military reform is completed next year and the training, command, and combat effectiveness are greatly improved, we can use the Xixia attack this year and tear up the contract as an excuse to destroy them.

Even if Xixia did not attack the territory of the Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty only needed to say that they had signed a treaty with Qingtang and have this excuse.

Anyway, contracts are meant to be violated.

When Xixia is destroyed, the only opponent will be the Liao Kingdom, and the two sides will most likely fall into a protracted war.

And if Xixia was too busy to apologize and hope that the Song Dynasty would forgive, then it is not impossible for the Song Dynasty to accept their apology when giving priority to domestic development.

But the apology must also be sincere, and war reparations are not excessive.

Let Xixia pay compensation for a few years, use the money for military expenses, and continue to strengthen the army. After a few years, the Song Dynasty will be strong enough to completely eliminate Xixia and Liao, and then completely start the campaign to extinguish Xia and Liao.

In this way, first of all, it will not harm people's livelihood, and secondly, it will be more secure. Last but not least, the Song Dynasty needed time to cultivate talents internally in order to digest the territory of Liao and Xia in the future.

Once the Xixia and Liao Kingdoms were destroyed, it would be equivalent to a jump from the original three million square kilometers of land to nearly ten million square kilometers of land.

It took many years just to digest it.