Zhao Kuangyin was not upright in his country, so he was also prepared for his generals. All the elites in the country were transferred to Kaifeng to become imperial guards and implemented the policy of forcing the weak branches. It can be said that the imperial guards did not practice martial arts for many years, and their military facilities had long been relaxed. On the contrary, the border troops in Hebei and the northwest were stationed on the border for many years and clashed with enemies abroad from time to time, and maintained strong combat effectiveness. It can be said that the strategy of strong, weak branches set by Zhao Kuangyin had already been in name only.

However, in order to prevent local troops from making trouble, the Song Dynasty began to use the policy of civil warfare. The power in the hands of military generals was severely weakened. They were usually only responsible for training troops and did not mobilize the power of the army. Even the methods of training had to use the formation maps uniformly distributed by the court, which was very rigid and ignorant. In this way, the power in the hands of military generals was almost infinitely reduced, and even when they went to the battlefield, they would be controlled by civil officials and military supervisors.

It can be said that through the above series of policies, almost all the hands and feet of the military generals were bound. Even if they were in charge of the army, they could not do anything. For example, this time the Dayanlin rebellion of the Liao Kingdom, the Liao Kingdom transferred all the main forces of the border to quell the chaos. It can be said that as long as the Song army pushed over, almost 70,000 to 80,000 will be sure to recover Yan Yun before the main forces of the Liao Kingdom come back.

However, it is a pity that generals in the border army like Hu Yan Shouxin have no right to mobilize troops at all, and the memorials reported are not valued. Of course, the most important thing is that Liu E does not want to fight. She just needs to defend the country handed over to her by Zhao Heng, let alone civil officials. They have always sought stability, and coupled with the need to suppress military generals, after all, if they fight, military generals may make use of military merits, which is something that civil officials' interest groups do not want to see.

Thinking of the above, Li Zhang couldn't help but sigh, but now it's useless to think about it. Da Yanlin has been captured, and the main army of Liao Kingdom has also begun to retreat. Da Song no longer has the opportunity to send troops again.

After Fu Bi and others arranged the mission, they immediately found Li Zhang, and then went to the banquet with Hu Yan Shuixin's warm greeting. This time, in order to welcome Li Zhang, Hu Yan Shuixin also invested a lot of money and actually invited a chef from Zhending Mansion. After all, Suicheng is a small city and there is no big restaurant. If you want to eat something good, you have to go to the nearby big city.

Li Zhang did not politely with Hu Yan Shuxin. Although the generals of the Song Dynasty lived a cowardly life, they were not short of money at all. The salary of civil officials of the Song Dynasty was already high enough, but military generals of the same level were higher than those of civil officials. This was also the rule set by Zhao Kuangyin at the beginning. Since the generals were deprived of their power, they could only compensate them in terms of money. For example, generals like Hu Yan Shuxin who guarded a city alone, the salary of his own was enough to live a very prosperous life even if the Hu Yan family did not do business.

However, Li Zhang did not like drinking, and Huyan Shuxin knew more than anyone else, so he asked his men to inject other people, and he ate and chatted with Li Zhang. Li Zhang was not only interested in the information of the Liao Kingdom, but also in the situation in Hebei. After all, he hoped that one day the Song Dynasty would recapture Yan Yun and even further destroy the Liao Kingdom, while Hebei was the front station to attack the Liao Kingdom.

"Brother Li, don't look at our small city, but this is where Yang Yanzhao and the Old General Yang were stationed in the past, and they have defeated the Liao army several times!" Hu Yan Shouxin also felt a little drunk at this time. After introducing the situation near Hebei, he suddenly pointed at his feet and smiled.

"The old general Yang from Tianbo Yang's Mansion?" Li Zhang's eyes lit up when he heard Hu Yan Shouxin's words.

The Yang Family General is the novel he is most familiar with, and Yang Liulang is his childhood idol. However, unfortunately, Yang Liulang had already passed away when he traveled through time, but his son Yang Wenguang is still alive. In the novel, Yang Wenguang is Yang Liulang's grandson, but in the official history they are actually father and son, so the novel is a novel after all, and cannot be regarded as a historical book.

"That's right, it's the old general Yang. By seniority, I can call him uncle. Suicheng is where he was stationed. In the second year of Xianping, the Liao army suddenly attacked. Suicheng had few soldiers and was not prepared. However, the old general Yang organized the soldiers and civilians in the city to defend the city to the death and repelled the Liao army's attacks countless times. Later, the Liao army attacked the city at any cost. Seeing that the city wall of Suicheng was about to be unable to hold on, the old general Yang had an idea and actually made people pour water on the city wall. It was cold and the ice city was built overnight, which forced the Liao army to be helpless and finally had to withdraw its troops." Hu Yan Shouxin mentioned Yang Liulang's original achievements, and also showed a look of yearning on his face.

Li Zhang also knew Yang Yanzhao's deeds very well, so he naturally knew the story of the enemy repelling in the Ice City, but the records in history books are relatively simple, and Li Zhang was not specialized in history, so he didn't know in detail. Now he inquired again: "Brother Huyan, what else do you know about Old General Yang? Tell me about it."

"That's too many. When the old general Yang was stationed in Suicheng for many years, he also defeated the Liao army several times here. The most famous record was in Yangshan not far from Suicheng. It was originally called Yangshan. When the old general Yang defeated the Liao army there, the local people changed Yangshan to Yangshan in order to commemorate him..."

Hu Yan Shouxin said that and told Yang Yanzhao's deeds. Li Zhang also listened with relish. Suicheng was already the border between the Song Dynasty and the Liao Kingdom. He would enter the territory of Liao Kingdom further north, so Li Zhang also planned to rest here for two days. Today he heard about Yang Liulang's deeds, which made him even more interested. So in the end, he and Hu Yan Shouxin agreed that they would go to Yangshan together tomorrow, which would be considered as paying tribute to the Old General Yang.

However, just as Li Zhang and Hu Yan Shouxin were talking, Fu Bi and others were in trouble. Hu Yan Shouxin called many generals to accompany him. As a result, these poor men in the army were all extremely drunk. Fu Bi and his civil servants were not their opponents at all. Now they were all drunk. Many people even sat on the chairs and started to sway.

By the end of the banquet, there was no one who could stand. Of course, Hu Yan Shouxin's generals were almost the same. They were usually in the army, but they finally broke the ruling this time, so they naturally had to have a good time. In the end, the banquet was in a mess. Hu Yan Shouxin was drunk himself, so Li Zhang could only ask the personal soldiers outside to send these people back to their respective residences.

The next morning, Hu Yan Shouxin ran to Li Zhang again, jumping around and jumping. I have to say that the physical fitness of those who practice martial arts is good. I drank so much yesterday, but today I still didn't suffer any influence. It's really admirable.

Hu Yan Shouxin knew that Li Zhang would stay in Suicheng for two more days, so he planned to take him around the city today, especially yesterday they made an appointment to go to Yangshan, so after he found Li Zhang for breakfast, he first introduced Li Zhang to the situation in Suicheng.

Although Suicheng is a small city, it is a military center on the border of the Song Dynasty. Because it is the northern gate to enter the Zhending Prefecture. If the Liao army wants to attack the Zhending Prefecture, it must pass by here. Therefore, from the beginning of the establishment of the Song Dynasty, there was an elite soldier stationed here. It was Yang Yanzhao, and now it is Hu Yan's trustworthy musketeer.

It was still early, so Hu Yan Shouxin took Li Zhang to walk in Suicheng and introduced to him that the muskets were expanded to two super-organized troops, each with 3,000 people. The muskets in Hebei were led by Hu Yan Shouxin. His three thousand muskets are now stationed in Suicheng. He had fought with the Khitan cavalry who had gone south before. Faced with the elite firearm troops, the Khitans suffered a great loss, so even if the Khitans went south in the past two years, they would not choose the direction of Suicheng.

"Now the Muskets Army has made a reputation in the Liao Kingdom, which has led to the fact that there is no war to fight in the past two years. Seeing that the muskets are so sharp, I have also written to the court many times to add muskets to other troops. However, the court has only added two armies because it is too expensive to build muskets. In addition, the two muskets of Brother Cao and I have only 11,000 people in total, which seems to be quite a lot. But there are too many places in my Song Dynasty that need to be stationed, and this little person cannot affect the overall situation at all." Hu Yan Shouxin said at the end, a look of anger appeared on his face.

Li Zhang sighed when he heard this. He was imprisoned in the previous year and knew little about the outside world. He did not contact other people after he came out. The main reason was that he was afraid that Liu E would be too careless, so Cao Wei and others did not dare to visit him, which made him not know much about the outside world, and he did not know much about the military's expansion of the musket army. However, if you think about it carefully, it was normal for the imperial court to refuse to expand the musket army.

The cost of muskets is indeed higher than that of ordinary weapons, and later maintenance also requires considerable expenses. Compared with the later, cold weapons such as swords are much lower. In addition, muskets are new weapons. Even if the power of muskets has been proven in the army, the court still dares not take too much risk to replace swords with muskets. After all, for a country, stability is far more important than anything.

"This matter is not urgent for the time being. Maybe a few more victories will be won in the future. The court will understand that muskets are the mainstream of the future battlefield." Li Zhang could only comfort him in the end.

"That's all, but there may be no big battle in Hebei. Let's look at Brother Cao now." Hu Yan Shouxin couldn't help but sigh again when he spoke at the end.

"There should be a fierce battle in the northwest. Li Yuanhao of Dangxiang was rekindled. He was about to unify Dangxiang. Some time ago, I heard that Brother Cao received an order from the court to attack Dangxiang, hoping to delay the pace of Dangxiang's unification. I don't know how it is now?" Li Zhang was also quite heavy when he mentioned Dangxiang.
Chapter completed!