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

The fighting lasted for a day and a night. From noon on the 24th to the early morning of the 25th, the Song army chased the Liao army for more than a hundred miles.

Along the way, the Liao army was scattered, killed by the Song army, and captured by the Song army. It was a heavy loss.

At the morning of the 25th, Fan Zhongyan finally began to assemble the troops.

It was not that he did not want to continue to expand the results of the battle, but now the Song army soldiers were also very tired, tired, sleepy and hungry, and their spirits were already tense to the extreme.

After all, since having a lunch yesterday at noon, the Song army has been in a high-intensity fight. Until now, they have not slept or eaten, and it has lasted for a day and a night.

Even an iron body can't stand it.

So Fan Zhongyan naturally had to assemble the troops immediately, so as to give the soldiers a good rest and also the opportunity to rest the troops.

At this time, the main force of the Song army had arrived in Shunzhou and Huairou areas.

Due to the previous chaos, each army was in great chaos, and the generals of each army had few troops under their command, and all of them went to other people's command.

Therefore, the Song army made timely adjustments and stationed in Dazhuzhuang, Wangjing Pavilion, Sunhouting and other places south of Shunzhou and Huairou, allowing each army to return to their camps, start to eat breakfast, and then sleep.

The busiest people now are the logistics auxiliary soldiers and civilians.

Before the end of Chenshi, they began to cut down trees, build fences, make food, and then set up tents in these places to provide food and accommodation for the frontline soldiers.

By the time of Sishi in the morning, the Song army had settled in Shunzhou, Huairou and other places.

I saw that countless simple tents were densely piled up in the fence that was only half a person's height. All the soldiers of the Song army were sleeping soundly inside, and the snoring in each camp was like thunder, as if they were not worried about the enemy attacking at all.

Fan Zhongyan put his hands behind his back and walked leisurely outside the camp with Wang Su, Wei Huanzhi and others, looking at the wilderness in the distance.

I saw that to the north of the camp, everything was full of vitality and green. In the distance, there were undulating hills and mountains, dense forests, and some dilapidated villages. In the distance, a city stood on the distant horizon.

That was Shunzhou City of the Liao Kingdom.

"I think this place is where the Liao people are going to ambush us. Those mountains should be where they deploy artillery."

Fan Zhongyan pointed to the distance and said, "It is indeed dangerous. If we rashly pursue them, there will be forests everywhere in the distance. We can only take the main road and will be ambushed by their artillery fire. The consequences are disastrous."

Wei Huanzhi also put his hands behind his back, stepped on the green grass under his feet, and said with a smile: "Everything is planned by the husband, and the conspiracy of the Liao people was thwarted with all his wisdom."

Fan Zhongyan smiled bitterly and shook his head and said, "I actually know nothing. No, it was all the soldiers who risked their lives. "

"How could it be, if it weren't for you, I'm afraid we would have fallen into the Liao people's trap."

"Yes, you are really a god. I've only seen you predict the enemy from a thousand miles away in books before, but now I've really seen it."

"Yes, you are very wise, and you have calculated every step of the Liao people clearly. If it were someone else, it would be impossible to win. All this is thanks to you."

"Who would have thought that the Liao people's retreat was a retreat to advance? Only you have such wisdom."

Everyone praised him, almost flattering him.

If it were in the past, if they encountered a situation like Fan Zhongyan, even if he was a civil servant, they would have attacked him in groups to prevent him from holding his own troops and would have to pull him down.

But in recent years, the atmosphere in the court has changed greatly. When colleagues encounter talented people, they will no longer be jealous of them.

It is not that the officials' temperament has improved, but that those who are disobedient and disobedient as before are often dismissed, excluded, and demoted, and are not allowed to serve in the court again.

As a result, if there is no actual evidence in the court today, they will no longer make up stories, impeach, spread rumors, and slander their colleagues at will.

And the leader of all this is naturally Zhao Jun.

It is not that Zhao Jun is persecuting these officials, but he must change this atmosphere.

Once a dazzling talent appears in the court, such as Di Qing in history, he will be suppressed, criticized, and even spread rumors and slander.

If this continues, it will be strange if the Song Dynasty can be saved.

So Zhao Jun must change this atmosphere to encourage the emergence of talents.

After all, it is easy to get thousands of troops but difficult to get a general. Whether it is governing the country or marching and fighting, talents are very important.

As for the problem of holding troops and being self-reliant, it can be completely solved through the system.

For example, under the current system, even if Fan Zhongyan has more than 200,000 troops in his hands, it is almost impossible to achieve rebellion.

Let's not talk about whether the senior generals and civil officials like Zhang Kang, Di Qing, Wang Su, Wei Huanzhi are willing to follow. It is difficult to do this after the army reform.

Because the overall military system of the Song Dynasty was only at the army level, each army had 5,000 people, and Fan Zhongyan had more than 30 armies under his command, led by nearly 100 middle and senior generals.

Unless Fan Zhongyan can instigate more than 100 middle and senior generals including Zhang Kang and Di Qing, it is almost impossible to rebel.

Therefore, it is imperative to clean up the atmosphere in the court.

When Fan Zhongyan heard the compliments from everyone, he had to smile awkwardly and didn't say anything more about this matter.

In fact, he knew his own ability. He was at most a second-rate commander.

Compared with the first-class commanders in history, it was far worse, not to mention the top commanders like Sun Wu, Bai Qi, and Han Xin.

There are two main reasons why he can do this.

One is poor information.

A person from later generations told him the information in advance, so that he could predict the enemy in advance, and he would naturally be victorious in every battle.

The second is the arrival of the firearms age.

Especially for the latter, their advanced thermal weapons allowed them to qualitatively crush the Liao army, which mainly used cold weapons.

Otherwise, given the previous situation of the Song Army, even if there was information gap, it would be difficult to win against the Liao people with real swords and guns on the frontal battlefield.

Therefore, Fan Zhongyan was able to achieve a great victory over the Liao State this time, largely due to the improvement of the Song Dynasty's comprehensive national strength and more advanced weapons and equipment.

To sum it up, "Times have changed, my lord."

If he takes credit for this reason and thinks he is great, outsiders like Wang Suwei Huanzhi who don't know the inside story will naturally not find anything strange.

But if the people inside the political system who know the inside story learn about it, they will probably laugh at him for pretending to be so powerful, but he will be complacent.

Several people were talking.

Zhang Kang walked out of the camp and said, "Mr.

"Gongshou woke up so soon, didn't I ask you to have a good rest?"

Fan Zhongyan couldn't help but frown when he saw that Zhang Kang had a pair of panda eyes, obviously not having a good night's sleep.

Zhang Kang was indeed tired, but he said: "I can't sleep because I think about it. I wonder if this would be inappropriate? The soldiers are all resting. What if the Liao army in the city suddenly comes out?"

He didn't sleep all night last night and kept fighting. It wasn't until this morning that he went to take a short rest.

But I lay in bed and slept for an hour or two, and still woke up due to a sense of uneasiness. It was really imprudent to be so unprepared.

Fan Zhongyan slapped his forehead and said: "Gongshou didn't sleep all night last night. I only asked you to rest, but I forgot to tell you this."

As he spoke, he pointed in the direction of Shunzhou City with a smile: "Yelü Zong was so frightened that he fled north overnight. Now there are only five thousand people in the city, and the general is still our internal response."

"Forehead"

Zhang Kang was dumbfounded.

Is the garrison commander in the city one of theirs?

It seemed like my worries were in vain all night.

But think about it carefully.

There seems to be no problem.

What's the situation now?

The Liao people were defeated miserably.

Yelu Zongzhen fled north in panic.

The Pishi Army suffered heavy losses.

Although the battlefield is still being cleaned in the rear, the war supervisor is counting battle achievements and casualties.

However, the rough estimates of the various ministries alone put the number of prisoners at more than 50,000 to 60,000, and the casualties would only be much higher than this number.

And not only the Pishi Army, but also soldiers from other ethnic tribes of the Liao people suffered numerous casualties.

This not only severely weakened the strength of the Liao people and affiliated tribes.

At the same time, it is bound to make the Khitan's prestige plummet, making other ethnic tribes who are already ready to take action dissatisfied.

It can be said that under such a blow, it is a question whether Yelv Zong can really maintain the Liao Kingdom.

Therefore, it is reasonable for the enemy to assess the situation and change the court.

"My husband is still wise and mighty."

Zhang Kang said hurriedly: "Then let's take advantage of the situation and conquer Yan Yun first?"

"Well, of course that's the case, not only Yanyun, but also Shenzhou outside Guan."

"Shenzhou?"

"good."

Fan Zhongyan nodded and said: "Although Shenzhou was just a small city before, it became prosperous after Yelu Abaoji migrated a large number of Han people and became the Liaoyang Prefecture of the Liao Kingdom today. But since Qin Kai of the Yan Kingdom cast Hou Cheng here, this place has How can we, the Han people, let our territory be left alone outside the Pass?”

Everyone felt something was wrong.

Wei Huanzhi wondered: "My lord, are you only going to recover Yanyun and Shenzhou?"

"Yes, sir."

Zhang Kang said hurriedly: "With this great victory, it is time to take advantage of the victory to pursue and attack the central capital of the Liao Kingdom. Why did we only recover Yanyun and stop moving forward?"

"Not going north."

Fan Zhongyan shook his head.

"Why?"

Everyone was confused and very puzzled.

At present, the vitality of the Liao Kingdom is greatly damaged. This is the best time to destroy the Liao Kingdom.

However, Fan Zhongyan shook his head and said: "When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty destroyed the Huns, it was because the Huns had threatened the Han Dynasty, so Han Wu assembled hundreds of thousands of troops and launched an attack on Monan."

As he spoke, he continued: "Although Han Wu destroyed the Xiongnu in that battle, the country itself was almost collapsed. Can you see the desert returning to Han soil?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Xian, destroying Liao will not be beneficial to us?"

Wang Su somewhat understood what Fan Zhongyan meant.

"good."

Fan Zhongyan tapped his chin and said: "Not only is it useless, but it is harmful. Therefore, destroying Liao at this time is not the best policy. This is also the meaning of the Constitutional Yuan."

After finishing speaking, Fan Zhongyan smiled mysteriously and said: "The Constitutional Yuan's consideration is not one day, but changes in the next few decades or even hundreds of years. These are not things that you can know, you just need to listen immediately. "

"I see."

When everyone heard that it was the consideration of the Constitutional Yuan, they looked at each other and naturally did not ask any more questions.

Nowadays, the Constitutional Yuan has too much power.

In the past, when the emperor's power was still limited, for example, if an imperial edict was issued and someone in Zhongshushe felt that there was something wrong with the emperor's order, he would have the power to reject it.

But the current Constitutional Yuan has almost no obstacles to its power. As long as it is a decision made by many prime ministers, there is no room for rejection.

Therefore, it can be said that there is no longer any voice questioning the Constitutional Yuan in the whole government.

In fact, this is also true.

In essence, the Constitutional Yuan actually represents the ancient power of the prime minister.

Since ancient times, there has been a struggle between the power of the prime minister and the power of the emperor.

In the case of Hu Weiyong in the Ming Dynasty, wasn't Zhu Yuanzhang suppressing the power of the prime minister and returning the power to his own hands?

But now the power of the prime minister has undergone a huge change because of Zhao Jun.

The struggle between the power of the emperor and the power of the prime minister is that there is an overlap of power and mutual distrust between the two sides.

It is different now.

The Political System Council and the emperor are grasshoppers tied to the same rope.

If the power of the emperor and the power of the prime minister are combined, then there will be no power obstacles, and the power will be overwhelming, right?

Therefore, the current system of the Song Dynasty is, to a certain extent, the best system in ancient times and a model for the prime minister to establish.

There is no suspicion between the monarch and the ministers, and the power is highly concentrated, which greatly improves the administrative efficiency, thus forming a nearly perfect administrative system like now.

Of course.

The emergence of this system is a special case.

If there was no Zhao Jun, Zhao Zhen would not have allowed the Political System Council, a place with highly concentrated power, to appear, nor would he have delegated power to the lower levels.

So in general, as long as Zhao Jun is there, then this system can be maintained.

If one day he is gone,

It is hard to say whether this system can continue to be maintained.

The only good news is that Zhao Jun is still very young and can live for a long time.

"Well, now Yelu Zongzhen has fled north in panic, and there are only a large number of Liao people fleeing and some Liao troops outside Yumen Pass in Youyan."

Fan Zhongyan said: "Now our task is to eliminate the remnants of the Liao people in Youyan, and then divide the troops into two groups, one to support Di Qing and attack Shenzhou, and the other to the west to support Yunzhou. We must take back the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun that we lost from the Han people for a hundred years."

"Yes."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Then Fan Zhongyan looked at Wang Su and said with a smile: "Zhongyi, such good news should be reported immediately. You should write a note and report it to Bianliang immediately, so that His Majesty and the civil and military officials can be happy."

"Yes."

Wang Su laughed: "Your Majesty will be very happy when he knows about this."

"Yes, this is the recovery of Yanyun. In the past, it was simply unthinkable."

"Who would have thought that the Liao people who fought to the city of Chanzhou in the past would now be beaten by our Song Dynasty and fled north in panic, not daring to look south?"

"It's a pity. My uncle was an official in Hebei in his early years. When the Liao people invaded, they met with an accident. My father wanted to avenge him all his life. Today, the great revenge was avenged, but my father can no longer see it."

Everyone was full of emotion and looked at the sky above their heads.

The warm spring sun was so warm and warm that it seemed to be full of tranquility and peace in the land of Youyan.

It has been a hundred years since the Song Dynasty lost Yanyun.

And today.

It was like a breath of foul air in the chest suddenly bursting out.

It was so refreshing.