In the spring of the sixth year of Yongde, the governor of Shuofang Qi Shidao formally sent troops to attack Fanyang's rebels. Shuofang's army marched south from Shuofang to attack Jingzhao Prefecture in the south.

At the same time, the Hedong Jiedushi Wang Fu also sent troops in Taiyuan Prefecture to attack Henan Prefecture in the south of Taiyuan.

In addition to these two armies, Qi Shidao also sent people to actively contact the civil rebel army in Guanzhong to prepare to cooperate with this Guanzhong rebel army in order to cross Xiaoguan north of Guanzhong and successfully enter Guanzhong.

After more than two years of development, this Guanzhong rebel army has been repeatedly surrounded by Fanyang rebels, but now it has a scale of thousands of people. More importantly, this Guanzhong rebel army is all composed of Guanzhong men and has an extremely good mass base. If this Guanzhong rebel army cooperates, the Shuofang army may have a very low price to enter Guanzhong surrounded by the four passes without having to use human lives to force Tongguan like Fanyang army.

In addition to these two northern troops, Lin Zhao, Duke of Yue of Qingzhou, was not idle either. The Qingzhou army under his command sent 5,000 troops and arrived at Dongguang County, Cangzhou around the Lantern Festival. After a brief rest for a day, he set out the next day and headed towards Dezhou, west of Cangzhou.

The task of conquering Dezhou and Beizhou is not difficult. One reason is that Fan Yang's army did not have many main forces garrisoned here. After they captured these prefectures and counties two years ago, they left only a few hundred people, and then used these hundreds of people to recruit local young and strong troops to form a defender.

However, these small teams left by Fan Yang's army did not have the financial resources like Lin Zhao, and did not know how to manage their power. As a result, the combined forces of the two states of Texas and Beizhou were only three or four thousand, most of them were mobs.

The Qingzhou Army is now a serious army, and is equipped with a firearm battalion and a considerable number of firearms. In this case, it is not a problem to capture these two states with 5,000 Qingzhou Army.

Lin Zhao waited only in Qingzhou until mid-February, and then waited for the news that the Qingzhou army had defeated Dezhou. After receiving the news, he said goodbye to his family, got on a carriage and took Cui Zhiqing to Beizhou together.

Before leaving, most of the family members came to see him off. Lin Erniang even sent a letter and handed it to Lin Zhao, reminding him: "Originally, your father should have written this letter, but he is not in Qingzhou, so he can only write it for his mother. After arriving in Beizhou, he will pass it on to the Cui family brother."

Speaking of this, she glanced at Cui Zhiqing on the carriage. She didn't know if she remembered her own experience. She sighed slightly: "If the Cui family needs our Lin family to come over at that time, I will go there personally for my mother and decide on this matter."

The mother and son said this as a whisper. Xie Danran, who saw him off, did not hear it. Lin Zhao nodded and smiled at his mother and said, "Don't worry, my mother, I can do it."

Lin Erniang nodded slightly.

"After the completion of the work, we will return to Qingzhou as soon as possible. Now it is not peaceful outside. If you go out alone, you are a little worried about your mother."

Duke Lin smiled slightly: "My grandma, wherever my son goes, there is nothing to worry about."

Cui Zhiqing, who was standing beside her, also lowered her head to Lin Erniang and said, "Don't worry, mother, I... I will take good care of Sanlang."

Lin Erniang nodded and said nothing more.

After Lin Zhao said goodbye to his family one by one, he got on the carriage. Then, under the protection of more than 200 personal guards, the carriage slowly left Qingzhou.

In fact, Lin Zhao usually goes out and only has dozens of guards around him. This time, the reason why he is so arrogant is because he wants to leave the Qingzhou army, and Texas Beizhou has been occupied by rebels for a long time. Therefore, under the strong request of everyone, he added guards to himself.

Because there was still a war ahead, Lin Zhao and his group were not in a hurry to leave. They walked from mid-February to early March. It took more than half a month to arrive in Zhangnan County in Beizhou.

It is only one or two hundred miles away from Qinghe.

At this time, the Qinghe war was not over. Qi Sheng's Qingzhou army was still besieging Qinghe. After Lin Zhao rested for a day in Zhangnan, he was about to set off to go to the Qinghe front to see the situation.

In the battlefield ahead, he naturally did not plan to take Cui Zhiqing with him, but the latter said he would follow him no matter what. There was no way, so Lin Zhao could only take Cui Zhiqing with him and set off for Qinghe.

Qinghe is the prefecture city of Beizhou and the ancestral land of Cui’s family for thousands of years. At this time, this ancient city was surrounded by the Qingzhou army.

It is worth mentioning that Qi Sheng only brought 5,000 Qingzhou troops to attack Dezhou Beizhou, but after two months of fighting, the number of this Qingzhou army increased instead of decreasing, and at this time there were already six or seven thousand people.

The Qingzhou Army's central army tent was located twenty miles outside Qingzhou City. After learning that Lin Zhao was coming to the front line, the Qingzhou general immediately brought the Qingzhou Army's general to greet the official road. After seeing Lin Zhao's carriage, he brought about a dozen middle and high-level Qingzhou Army's middle and high-level leaders to welcome the arrival of the boss on both sides of the road.

Among these ten people, two were deputy generals of the Qingzhou Army, and the others were commanders of the Qingzhou Army.

To this day, although the overall adaptation of the Qingzhou Army has not been completed, the army led by Qi Sheng has been adapted.

"The Qingzhou Army under the jurisdiction of Qi Sheng, please pay homage to the Duke!"

"Xiao Yuan, the Qingzhou Army, pay homage to the Duke!"

The carriage stopped, Lin Zhao, dressed in casual clothes, got off the carriage, glanced at everyone, and said slowly: "You don't have to be polite, get up."

Cui Zhiqing was not convenient for her to show up in this kind of scene, so she hid in the carriage and did not come out.

Under the leadership of Qi Sheng, Lin Zhao quickly arrived at the camp of the Qingzhou Army and sat down in the commander's tent. After the Qingzhou Army's generals took their seats one after another, Lin Zhao looked at Qi Sheng and asked, "General Qi, what's the battle in Qinghe?"

“It’s quite smooth.”

Qi Sheng lowered his head slightly and said, "We had arrived at Qinghe three days ago. According to the original plan, we should be able to capture Qinghe today. After our first day of fighting, the Qinghe defenders tended to be defeated, but because of the strong attack on Zhoucheng, we also suffered a lot of casualties."

Speaking of this, Qi Sheng paused and continued: "Originally, I could get it after two more days of fighting, but yesterday my subordinates received a letter from the Cui family in Qinghe City, saying that they could help us open the Qinghe City Gate within three days. My subordinates were thinking..."

"I thought that after taking Qinghe, it would take only a few days to take Beizhou. Besides, there would definitely be many casualties and injuries in the attack of Zhoucheng, so I agreed to wait for them for three days and we will have a temporary quit today."

"Three days..."

Duke Lin from the main seat narrowed his eyes and whispered: "These three days can be waited, but in order to prevent the enemy from pretending to be the Cui family to delay the army, as time comes, he will immediately prepare to attack Qinghe."

The Cui family has been based in Qinghe for thousands of years. The Cui family in the city is not even ten thousand, but it is even thousands of dollars. Moreover, the people in the entire Qinghe City can more or less have anything to do with the Cui family. If the Cui family is really willing to support the Qingzhou army, they have the ability to open the city gate from the inside.

The reputation of the Fan Yang rebels has always been very bad. I heard that they often do things in Beizhou, so the Cui family also has the motivation to expel the rebels, so it is still worth waiting for a while.

For Lin Zhao, it is naturally a good thing to die fewer people by himself.

"I understand!"

"There is the governance issues between Texas and Bayern."

Duke Lin looked calm and said, "We are not bandits, we cannot just occupy and not govern. These two states should set up new yamen as soon as possible to handle political affairs."

"I have already sent a letter to Mr. Chen in Texas, asking him to select a governor from his subordinates to temporarily manage Texas affairs, and here in Beizhou, after the Qinghe River is established, the candidate for the governor will be decided soon."

Speaking of this, Lin Zhao glanced at Qi Sheng and his voice was low.

"These troops brought by General Qi must fully support the newly formed governor's yamen and maintain local order."

Qi Sheng immediately stood up and bowed respectfully.

"Subordinate to obey the order!"
Chapter completed!