The western slopes of Mount Long and the Qinling Mountains were home to countless hawks. The messenger pigeons that Feng Yi and Lu Ze had brought with their forces to Chengzhou were easy prey for these hawks and other birds of prey. This time, the pigeons had failed to transmit the news promptly.

The news of Li Zhigao leading the Liangzhou Army westward to Chengzhou and achieving victory in their first battle was ultimately delivered by messengers traveling overland through mountain passes to Luoyang. By the time it arrived, it was already after the Lantern Festival of the third year of the Taihe era.

In early spring, Luoyang City still felt bitterly cold. After the New Year, new cast-iron lamp posts had been erected throughout the gardens of Shangyang Palace. At nightfall, palace maids would lift the lamp covers and add fresh carbide stones and water, then light them, producing illumination far brighter than traditional oil lamps.

The carbide stones were a new product accidentally created by the Engineering Institute during dry distillation experiments with quicklime and coke. They generated combustible gas upon contact with water. Fortunately, the quantity of carbide produced during the initial experiments was small, preventing any uncontrollable incidents.

The Engineering Institute had submitted the relevant materials, thinking the carbide stones might have some military application.

After reviewing the Engineering Institute’s materials, Han Qian realized that compared to military value, carbide stones that could steadily generate combustible gas when water was added were actually quite inexpensive outdoor lighting materials that burned much brighter than ordinary lamp oil.

For safety considerations, carbide stones could not be used for indoor lighting, and their storage required extremely strict moisture protection. Nevertheless, Han Qian ordered the Engineering Institute to immediately trial-manufacture a batch of carbide lamps for installation in Shangyang Palace gardens to facilitate future promotion of this novel invention.

The carbide lamps under the eaves emitted bright light that shone through the greenish-tinted glass windows into the great hall of Lingyun Pavilion. Han Qian sat behind a long desk beneath the window, reviewing the memorials sent back by Li Zhigao and Feng Yi from Chengzhou, saying to Wang Jun with considerable satisfaction:

“See? I was decisive in ordering the Liangzhou Army to advance westward and didn’t delay this important matter, wasn’t I?”

“Your decisive decision to send the Liangzhou Army westward was what you should do as the sovereign of Great Liang. That Chen Jingzhou and Han Yuanqi had reservations beforehand was also their duty as ministers to consider matters thoroughly for you. What are you so proud about at this moment?” Wang Jun said with a smile.

The memorials Li Zhigao and Feng Yi had sent back recorded the details of the Liangzhou Army’s first battle in their western campaign into Longxi, which made everyone in Luoyang feel quite fortunate. Chen Jingzhou and Han Yuanqi, who had initially advocated rejecting Li Zhigao’s request to advance westward, had just arrived at Shangyang Palace to reflect on their advice to Han Qian.

From the current situation, if Han Qian had accepted their suggestion and not approved Li Zhigao’s request to advance westward in early October, but instead waited until receiving news that Hou Mo and other Qiang tribal chieftains had accepted Mongol incorporation before ordering Li Zhigao to organize troops from Liangzhou for a western campaign, setting aside the Liangzhou Army’s resistance to the idea, the process would have been delayed by at least three or four months.

By then, Hou Mo might have already preliminarily consolidated the Qiang forces in Chengzhou and perhaps even constructed sturdy defensive fortifications with garrisoned troops at Niuwei Gorge at the western entrance of the Niuji Station ancient road.

If the Liangzhou Army had advanced westward at that time, not only would it have become much more difficult, but they might have suffered devastating casualties without being able to break through Niuwei Gorge’s blockade. Yet this would have still formed a military threat to Chengzhou and other areas in southeastern Longxi, inevitably promoting greater internal consolidation among the Qiang tribes in this region and more firmly aligning them with the Mongols.

Everything was interconnected—a single strand affects the whole web. In such a scenario, the entire western front situation would necessarily have turned unfavorable for Great Liang.

Of course, Han Qian had no intention of blaming Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou. As Wang Jun said, Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou’s initial suggestions were also fulfilling their responsibilities, and the final decision rested with him.

Naturally, Han Qian appeared somewhat triumphant when Han Yuanqi and Chen Jingzhou came by, primarily because Li Zhigao had promptly led his troops into Chengzhou, achieved victory in the first battle, and severely damaged Wang Xiaoxian’s forces in Qinzhou. The direct and potential impact on the overall war situation could not be underestimated.

On the other hand, Han Qian deeply understood that truly wise and far-sighted people in this era should not be underestimated. The reason he could stand above others was not because his personal wisdom was truly superior, but more because he benefited from the advanced experiences and knowledge systems from the dream world that far exceeded those of the current era.

In terms of pure personal intelligence, people like Feng Liao, Gu Qian, and Guo Rong were certainly not inferior to him. And Chen Jitang, who had now decided to remain in Liyang to preside over Liyang Academy and focus on promoting the systematic development of new learning, was far superior to him.

Wang Wenqian, residing at Lian Garden, had spent just over half a year thoroughly mastering over a hundred specialized texts on new learning that Wang Jun had sent there.

These hundred-plus specialized texts on new learning could all be made public within higher academies; beyond that, they were classified as top secret. Unable to access the Engineering Institute’s newer, more confidential research results, and also to avoid suspicion, Wang Wenqian could only write letters to Wang Jun to exchange some of his insights from studying new learning.

Only then did Han Qian realize there were indeed people of exceptional intelligence in this era. Seeing Wang Jun laugh at him now, he said: “I was planning to write a letter to Chen Jitang asking him to include your father in some of the new learning research currently under Liyang Academy’s responsibility, so your father could find something of genuine interest to occupy his remaining years—but since you’re laughing at me like this, I won’t write that letter…”

“Your Majesty, how must this subject beg before you’ll reconsider?” Wang Jun asked, tilting her head and gazing at Han Qian with beautiful eyes.

“It’s rare for you to ask something of me. I need to think carefully about this after finishing these memorials,” Han Qian said.

After the Council of Deliberation was established, a new system began operating where memorials from prefectures, counties, and various departments were first decided by the Left Secretariat and reviewed by the Council of Deliberation. In principle, Han Qian would no longer overturn decisions made by these offices, but he still reviewed important memorials and documents one by one.

These past few days, the main content discussed by the Left Secretariat and the Council of Deliberation revolved around the Liangzhou Army’s initial victory in the western campaign and continuing to support the Western Expedition Army’s operations in Longxi.

The far-reaching impact of the initial victory on the western front situation need not be mentioned. The most direct benefit was that in addition to obtaining fine warhorses from the Songpan region through Shu, they could subsequently obtain quality horse sources from Longxi.

What the Left Secretariat now needed to consider was how to organize high-value-added commercial goods with controllable transportation costs, using Xichuan and Mianyang as transfer points, transporting them via the Dan River, Han River, and Niuji Station ancient road to southeastern Longxi to trade for warhorses to bring back to the heartland, while simultaneously reserving sufficient profit margins for the Western Expedition Army so they could obtain adequate grain supplies locally.

The industrial production system currently taking shape was most concentrated in Xuzhou, East Lake, Huaiyang, Yongyang, and other places. The area under most vigorous development was the southern Luoyang region, where numerous workshops and factories were being built and coal and iron mines exploited.

Transporting industrial products from these regions to Longxi was difficult to minimize in terms of transportation costs.

Besides the scale of commercial goods shipped by water from Xuzhou to Deng and Jun prefectures being limited by peace treaty agreements, whether transporting trade goods from western Huai or Heluo into Xichuan via transfer waterways, there was always a considerable distance requiring overland transport.

Even though the construction of post roads and the promotion of heavy-load horse carts had solved part of the insufficient transport capacity problem, overland transportation costs remained several times higher than main waterway shipping.

Feng Liao, Gu Qian, and others all advocated building workshops and factories in Xichuan and Wancheng to mine coal and iron.

Xichuan and Wancheng, serving as the prefectural seats of Jun and Deng prefectures, both had city-building histories spanning over a thousand years. Wancheng in particular, located at the center of Dengzhou (Nanyang Basin), had over two hundred thousand registered households within the city alone during the previous dynasty’s peak, while Dengzhou, known for Nanyang’s grain abundance, had registered households reaching as high as over a million at its maximum.

The prosperity of the Nanyang Basin was completely destroyed during the later period of the previous dynasty due to its strategic location at the north-south junction, suffering dozens of large and small continuous battles over decades.

After the founding of Liang and Chu, Nanyang was again the focal point of prolonged tug-of-war battles on the western front between the two states.

Even after the Jingxiang campaign, when Chu forces advanced their defense line to Fangcheng in the northern Nanyang Basin and relocated large numbers of military households to fill the defense lines, agricultural production only partially recovered. But when Lü Qingxia launched a failed palace coup and fled to Xiangcheng with Empress Dowager Wang Chan’er and Prince Xiang Yang Lin, briefly occupying northern Xiang, the agricultural production and population that Deng and Jun prefectures had struggled to restore suffered severe damage again.

Currently, the total recorded population of Deng and Jun prefectures was only two hundred thousand. Even Junzhou, sandwiched between the Funiu Mountains and Qinling Mountains with undulating terrain, had a slightly larger population than Dengzhou, which was known for Nanyang’s grain abundance and had large areas of fertile land available for cultivation.

To develop industrial and mining operations in Wancheng and Xichuan, there must be a corresponding agricultural population as a foundation.

Currently, the total population of the twelve counties in Deng and Jun prefectures was less than two hundred thousand and extremely dispersed. On such a foundation, there was no possibility of developing industrial and mining operations of any significant scale.

After the Liang-Chu peace negotiations, Great Liang promised to reduce its garrison in Deng and Jun prefectures. But the strategic value of these two prefectures could not be ignored by anyone. From this perspective alone, the Great Liang central government needed to relocate populations on a large scale to Deng and Jun prefectures to fill the counties.

Previously preoccupied with stabilizing the Heluo front line, they had been unable to attend to the development of Deng and Jun prefectures. This time, discussing the nearby transport of high-value commercial goods from Liangzhou to Longxi and advocating for large-scale development of industrial and mining operations in Wancheng and Xichuan meant that besides transferring engineers and their families from Xuzhou and East Lake to these two locations, they also could not avoid the need to transport agricultural populations to both places on a large scale.

The key issue was that the prefectures and counties currently under Great Liang’s jurisdiction were far from having abundant populations. Every region had large amounts of fertile land available for cultivation and urgently needed population influx rather than population outflow.

To resolve this contradiction, Feng Liao, Gu Qian, Guo Rong, and others suggested that after Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu defended the defense line on the west bank of the Ying River at Xuzhou and Chenzhou, subsequent military operations should focus on infiltrating the areas along the Guo River and Si River by any means necessary, either enticing or forcing the households in these regions to return and relocate to Deng and Jun prefectures. This would simultaneously achieve the goal of continuously weakening the Eastern Liang Army.

Although Han Qian was reluctant to engage in many actions that disturbed the people, military and state affairs could not tolerate excessive softness.

Of course, even to facilitate the smooth recovery of these places in the future, the foundation of popular support could not be lost. They must avoid using bloody methods that would create hatred as much as possible.

The Military Intelligence Staff Office submitted two proposals that could be implemented simultaneously.

The first was to use the copper precipitation method from brine that Xuzhou had mastered years ago. The Engineering Institute currently had some research on using displacement methods for copper and silver plating. They could manufacture iron coins plated with copper on a large scale to pass as normal copper coins and circulate them into cities controlled by the Eastern Liang Army such as Guoyang, Bozhou, Bianling, and Xingyang.

In plain terms, this meant using counterfeit coins that cost only one-fifth or one-sixth of normal copper coins to disrupt grain prices and other commodity prices in border cities controlled by the Eastern Liang Army, thereby suppressing these regions’ recovery and forcing the lower-class people to flee to western Huai and western Ying regions.

The second proposal was to construct diversion weirs in specific river bends of the Ying River so that a portion of the Yu River floodwaters completely submerged in the Sha-Ying River could be diverted through low-lying areas on the east bank of the Ying River toward the Guo River to the east.

Before recovering Xingyang, Wuzhi, and other cities and blocking the Yu River dike breach, this would not only effectively reduce flood disasters in the middle and lower reaches of the Sha-Ying River and in Shouzhou and Haozhou, but also deepen flood disasters along both banks of the Guo River controlled by the Eastern Liang Army during summer and autumn flood seasons, thereby achieving the goal of suppressing these regions’ recovery rhythm and forcing the lower-class people to flee to western Huai or western Ying regions.

At this time, Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu in Xu and Chen regions would provide appropriate guidance, making the effect of attracting population influx from Eastern Liang Army-controlled territories much more obvious.

Han Qian summoned Wang Zhe and Yin Peng, who were attending in the outer hall, and told them: “Seal up the second proposal, and regarding the first proposal to mint copper-plated iron coins, you should find Feng Liao and hand it over to the Official Currency Office for secret implementation. First mint one million strings of copper-plated iron coins and deliver them to Xuzhou to verify the results.”

“The effectiveness of minting copper-plated iron coins will require time to verify, but constructing diversion weirs at selected locations on the Ying River could have immediate results,” Wang Zhe said. “If Your Majesty worries about causing excessive harm to the people and needless deaths, before summer arrives we could first build a diversion weir at Yanling to initially divert small amounts of Yu River floodwaters into the Guo River…”

This method was one he had advocated and spent considerable effort perfecting, so naturally he wanted to persist with it.

“The speed of recovering Xingyang won’t be as slow as you imagine,” Han Qian said. “I plan to launch two-pronged military operations to attack Xingyang City before this autumn and winter. After recovering Xingyang City, we can accumulate concrete blocks on the western side of the dike breach to gradually close the breach or force the dike breach to shift eastward. At that time, there will naturally be the effect of diverting floodwaters to Wuzhi and southern Bianling, without needing to wastefully expend manpower and resources constructing diversion weirs within Xuzhou and Chenzhou territory…”

“Launch military operations against Xingyang before autumn and winter?” Wang Zhe asked somewhat hesitantly.

Although Xingyang was isolated in the northeastern foothills of Mount Song by the Yu River and the flooding Jialu River, Liang Shixiong currently personally led twenty thousand elite troops garrisoning Xingyang. Additionally, Zhao Mengzhou’s garrison at Mengzhou faced Xingyang across the river, while Bianling City, designated by Zhu Rang as the Eastern Liang Army’s national capital, was less than two hundred li from Xingyang across the flooding Jialu River, with elite-garrisoned fortified cities like Wuzhi in between.

Currently, Xingyang was the enemy army’s only foothold on Heluo’s eastern flank, while also being a large, formidable city with strong defenses. Wang Zhe had assumed Han Qian would wait two or three years, at least until the enemy army’s offensive power against Heluo region was completely relieved, before attempting military operations to seize Xingyang.

“Only after capturing Xingyang and ensuring Heluo’s eastern flank is completely secure can we launch military operations to recover Guanzhong,” Han Qian said. “I originally thought to wait two years until the Heluo situation stabilized before proceeding, but if Li Zhigao leads the Western Expedition Army successfully in Longxi operations this year, we might as well launch military operations against Xingyang—you draft a secret letter on my behalf to Wuji, instructing him to begin preparations…”

…

…

After the Lantern Festival, the Ying River remained frozen three feet thick, with no signs of the river ice melting yet.

Zhao Wuji, wearing a deep gray cloak and sitting astride his horse, had a lean face with cold, resolute features as if carved by knife and axe. Hearing the horse’s hooves tapping lightly on the hard river ice like iron hammers gently striking rock, he furrowed his temple-length eyebrows and gazed across at the wasteland-like terrain on the opposite bank.

To stabilize the Heluo situation, besides the thirty thousand-plus soldiers who perished at the Yi-Luo River confluence and flanking areas like Mount Mang and Hulao Pass, they had also spared no cost in widening the Song Southern and Shuanglong Gorge plank roads, breaking through the overland transportation bottleneck between Heluo, Shangzhou, and the heartland—the national strength had been severely depleted.

Even with remaining capacity, it was fully devoted to building and developing industrial and mining operations in southern Luoyang.

Whether the infiltration operations into Mount Li and Mount Wangwu after autumn or Li Zhigao’s recent leadership of the Liangzhou Army’s western campaign, the scale of troops employed had been limited. The troops deployed to Mount Li and Mount Wangwu were somewhat more numerous, mainly because supplying them across the Yu River was convenient without much additional consumption. The Western Expedition Army led by Li Zhigao actually numbered only six thousand troops, with the initial goal merely to subjugate and consolidate forces in the three prefectures of southeastern Longxi, requiring most grain supplies to be obtained locally.

This also determined that the newly established Xuzhou Field Army after the Liang-Chu peace agreement, even with elite infantry battalions and cavalry including Li Xiu, Feng Zhang, He Liufeng, Cao Ba, Zhao Ci, and others, lacked sufficient logistical support. Moreover, having only gradually transferred into Xuzhou, Chenzhou, and other fortified garrison locations after autumn, needing to familiarize themselves with the locale and construct camps, they had no means to conduct large-scale deep penetration operations into regions east of the Ying River.

But this didn’t mean they had fought few battles this winter.

Before flood season, the Mongol Army and Eastern Liang Army had attacked Heluo without success and were forced to withdraw after the Yu River flood season arrived. However, judging from the Heluo battle situation in the first half of the year and the final casualty ratios, the Mongol Army and Eastern Liang Army still held the advantage.

Wusu Dashi and Xiao Yiqing, seeing that Liang and Chu had ultimately reached a peace agreement allowing Liang forces to transfer large numbers of elite troops from the southern front to reinforce the defense line, decided to abandon organizing troops on a large scale to attack Heluo again this winter, with various forces focusing mainly on rest, reorganization, and consolidating existing defense lines.

However, Zhu Rang and the Mongol cavalry commander Hetu, who had entered southern Bianling as reinforcements to assist the Eastern Liang Army in defending the east bank of the Ying River, thought otherwise.

Besides Sima Tan and Xu Mingzhen’s forces from the southern front, after the Ying River completely froze in late November, Zhu Rang and Hetu organized large forces that crossed the middle reaches of the Ying River and frequently launched large-scale raids on Xuzhou and Chenzhou on the west bank of the Ying River.

Besides the twelve thousand-plus Mongol cavalry led by Hetu, Zhu Rang also organized twenty thousand cavalry who took turns entering the west bank of the Ying River for raids.

After late November, with streams and rivers frozen and the terrain east of the Funiu Mountains and Mount Song being open and flat, the topography also favored cavalry flanking and penetration operations.

The three newly formed cavalry brigades led by Li Xiu numbered only one-third of the invading enemy forces, yet they had to undertake the mission of intercepting enemy cavalry infiltration and penetration operations outside the fortifications, bearing tremendous pressure with considerable casualties throughout the winter.

Of course, when enemy cavalry attempted to mass large forces for deeper raids west of the Ying River, or even to attack and capture fortifications, or when they tried to besiege infantry brigade formations operating outside the fortifications, Great Liang’s well-trained, high-morale elite soldiers and sophisticated war machines like spring-powered bed crossbows entering mobile field operations made them suffer greatly.

By now, after the Lantern Festival, in another ten days or two weeks the streams and rivers of He-Huai would thaw. After leaving behind over three thousand corpses, the Eastern Liang Army had gradually withdrawn across the east bank of the Ying River.

The casualties of the Xuzhou Field Army were not particularly severe—throughout the winter’s counter-raid operations, combat deaths numbered slightly over one thousand. However, the houses burned and the civilians massacred or plundered in Chen and Xuzhou prefectures exceeded twenty thousand people.

Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu were quite dissatisfied with such results, but they had no good methods to prevent enemy cavalry, holding absolute numerical superiority, from dispersing and penetrating to conduct raids.

In this open wilderness terrain, even heavily armored infantry mounted on military horses not known for speed could hardly catch up with enemy light cavalry determined to conduct hit-and-run raids. In terms of cavalry numbers, they were far fewer than the He-Huai enemy forces and could not easily become entangled with them.

Wang Zhe had advocated constructing diversion weirs in the middle and upper reaches of the Ying River (Sha-Ying River) to divert the Yu River floodwaters toward the Guo River and even the Si River, thereby forming a deeper buffer zone in the He-Huai heartland. He had personally rushed to Xuzhou to survey the terrain on site and discussed it with Zhao Wuji, Li Xiu, and other Xuzhou generals.

Zhao Wuji and Li Xiu supported such a proposal.

This would prevent enemy forces from gaining a foothold on the east bank of the Ying River, so that in future autumn and winter seasons they could only launch raids on the west bank of the Ying River from the more distant east bank of the Guo River.

This would effectively increase the distance for enemy cavalry raids by one to two hundred li, naturally making it more favorable for the Xuzhou Field Army to defend on the west bank of the Ying River.

But unexpectedly, the proposal to construct diversion weirs in the middle and upper reaches of the Sha-Ying River was blocked by Han Qian and not approved. Han Qian additionally required them to consider and prepare for operational plans to attack Xingyang from the southern front within the year.

Zhao Wuji furrowed his brow, watching the last group of over a hundred enemy cavalry disappear from view in the distance, while mentally calculating how to prepare for military operations to attack Xingyang from the southern front.