After the battle to exterminate Xia, the soldiers and civilians of the Song Dynasty were more confident in regaining the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun, and they were no longer as afraid of the Liao Kingdom as before.
This phenomenon was also the same in the court. The power of the main war faction headed by Li Hao and others was unprecedentedly high.
Li Hao was quite satisfied with this point, which at least showed that the monarchs and ministers of the Song Dynasty were still proud and arrogant.
It's just that Li Hao's focus now is not here, but on the reward after the army returns to the court.
First of all, as one of the presiding officers of this battle, the British Duke is now at the pinnacle of military commanders, and he is really unbeatable.
After all, you can't bestow a king on a British prince. Until now, in the Song Dynasty, apart from the Chai family, no living king with a different surname had ever been granted the title.
Li Hao couldn't say much in this regard. After all, the relationship was between father-in-law and son-in-law, so as not to be accused of favoritism.
And if the king is also sensitive, now is the critical moment for the monarch and his ministers to work together to regain the sixteen states of Yanyun, and Li Hao does not want to cause waves because of this.
So after the discussion of the important ministers in the court, they simply gave the British Duke the titles of Yue Guo Gong and Ji Guo Gong, and made up the real three dukes.
Of course, this is limited to this generation. When the British Duke dies, the titles of Yue Guogong and Ji Guogong will be withdrawn, and I believe that by that time, the British Duke will definitely be posthumously awarded the title of king.
As for now, when the British Duke received the imperial edict, he had truly withdrawn from the court and was able to retire and retire in peace.
The other one is Ouyang Xiu. Although he did not personally preside over the Pingxia War, as Prime Minister, his function is to have a big job.
The official rank has also been promoted to the Third Division of Yitong in Kaifeng, with the title of Grand Master and the first rank, which can be regarded as a truly supreme minister. However, this position cannot be transferred again.
Ouyang Xiu is even preparing for the handover, planning to wait until things stabilize before he can become an official and hand over the power to Li Hao.
The rest, including Li Hao, Gu Tingye, Yang Wenyuan and others, also gained something. For example, Li Hao was promoted to the second-rank Dr. Jin Ziguanglu.
Gu Tingye and Yang Wenyuan took over as the commanders of the Palace Front Division and the Infantry Division of the Guards respectively. The rest, Yuan Wenshao, Li Yixing and others also took real power in the army.
However, for generals, under Li Hao's suppression, there was no large-scale promotion of official ranks. After all, Gu Tingye and the others were still young. If the ranks were promoted too quickly and they would be unable to be sealed later, it would be in trouble.
However, you can do something about the title. After all, many of these people cannot inherit their own title.
Gu Tingye is not needed here for the time being. He is already the Marquis of Ningyuan. After the Sixteenth State of Yanyun is recovered, he can be promoted to Duke.
As for the others, Yang Wenyuan, who was the commander along the way, was given the title of An Yongbo. In addition, the three best performers in the war were selected and given the title of earl.
The remaining people can only wait until Yanyun is recovered, and a group of earls will probably emerge by then.
After that, the succession in the court went smoothly. Li Hao took over the post of Ping Zhangshi from Tong Zhongshu from Ouyang Xiu, and began to formally command the political hall and take charge of six departments. At this point, the Song Dynasty entered the stage of development in Li Hao's hands. a new stage.
In addition, Li Hao is not Ouyang Xiu in the selection of Privy Councilor. Even though he is in a high position now, he does not have much prestige among the veterans.
Therefore, before Ouyang Xiu left, he helped Li Hao change the candidates for the Privy Council, and let Sheng Hong join the Privy Council as the Privy Councilor, so that Li Hao could use this to have total civil and military power.
After Li Hao took office, he made some adjustments to the powers of the Six Ministries, Nine Temples and Five Supervisors, and transferred the weapons supervision to the Ministry of War, which will uniformly manage ordnance production;
Weiwei Temple, Du Shui Supervisor, and the Supervisor of the Capital were transferred to the Ministry of Works to unify the power of craftsmen and control financial rights. After all, these yamen are big spenders of money, so it is better to put them under the watchful eye.
In addition, the strength of Taipu Temple has greatly increased this time. After all, Xixia was recovered this time, and Shuofang and Zhenwu roads were established. The Song Dynasty has had a place to raise horses since then, and the Song Dynasty has reconnected with the Western Regions. Trade routes, you can also obtain war horses from the Western Region.
Therefore, in order to make up for the lack of military horses in the Song Dynasty for decades, Li Hao deliberately left Taipu Temple as the yamen in charge of horse administration, and appointed Sheng Changbai as the Minister of Taipus Temple, entrusting him with important tasks.
After clarifying these things, Li Hao continued to work hard to save money for the Song Dynasty. You must know that the Liao Kingdom was different from Xixia in that its national power was far greater than it and its territory was vast.
Even if the Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures were successfully captured, they would still have to face a strong counterattack from the Liao Kingdom, and the war would inevitably be protracted.
In the meantime, Li Hao had always been kind and approachable to the people of Liao, and paid all the annual tributes as usual, thereby paralyzing the monarchs and ministers of Liao.
After waiting for three years, the number of soldiers and horses in the Song Dynasty had greatly improved, and Li Hao decided to expand the number of cavalry.
After all, the north is mostly plains, and most of the Liao soldiers and horses are cavalry. Even if they are defeated by the Song army, if the Song army does not have enough cavalry, it will be difficult to expand the results.
Therefore, Li Hao needs to arrange for someone to go to Zhenwu Road to train the cavalry there.
It became a question who to choose, so Li Hao called Gu Tingye, Yang Wenyuan, Zhang Wen, Yuan Wenshao, Li Yixing and others over to discuss.
Of course, Gu Tingye and Yang Wenyuan came here to consult. As the chief officials of the third government office, it was impossible for them to be responsible for this matter.
But facing Li Hao, the other people seemed less positive, after all, even if Li Hao didn't say it explicitly.
But thinking about attacking Liao in the future, there will definitely be several marches, and the cavalry will naturally have to be separated and used.
Then even if I go to train, I won't get any advantage, and I have to stay in the northwest for such a long time, so I might as well just stay away.
Seeing this, Li Hao didn't say much and took everyone to a nearby sand table. Li Hao specially ordered the craftsmen to follow the pictures and create a sand table about the terrain of Xijing Road and Nanjing Road in the Liao Kingdom.
Then he pointed and said: "This time to recapture the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun, I want to march in three ways, all the way out from Hedong Road, pass through Yanmen to attack Shuozhou and Yingzhou, and then go straight to Datong Prefecture, and wait for the After landing in Datong, they sent their troops north to Yanggao and Jiaoshan to resist the Liao army based on the terrain and the Sui Great Wall.
The other road starts from Hebei East Road, passes through Xiongzhou, attacks Xincheng and Zhuozhou, and then goes straight to Xijin Prefecture. After taking Xijin Prefecture, it will also send troops north to capture Juyong Pass and Jinpo Pass based on the Great Wall to completely drive away the Liao army. Out of Yanyun sixteen states.
And this last group of troops followed the army from Hebei East Road first. After all, once a war breaks out between these two places, there is a high probability that the Liao soldiers and horses will take advantage of the situation to support Nanjing Road, where the pressure is even greater.
But we have to be on guard against the fact that the Liao Dynasty will go in the opposite direction and support Datong Prefecture to destroy our plans first.
Therefore, this last route is the general reserve force, which is mainly composed of cavalry. Once the Liao army's movements are known, it must immediately lead troops to support it, which is a heavy responsibility.
Since this route is mainly based on cavalry, the general must be someone who is familiar with cavalry warfare, right? "
After hearing this, everyone began to compete for the task of going to the northwest to train cavalry. There was no way, who made this bait so fragrant.
In the end, after a lot of fighting, this position was earned by Li Yixing.
Then Li Hao ordered: "This time, I don't want you to start all over again. You will dispatch five thousand cavalry from the Palace Front Division and the Guards Infantry Division.
Let them help you train in the northwest. My requirement is that in two years, the northwest will be able to mobilize at least 40,000 cavalry to participate in the war. "
Li Yixing readily agreed to Li Hao's words.
In fact, in the Song Dynasty at this time, a large group of knowledgeable people were preparing for a life-and-death battle with the Liao Kingdom.
On the eve of arriving at the main station, Li Hao counted the money and food he had saved over the years. Although the amount was indeed quite large, the situation on the battlefield was changing rapidly, so he wanted to be more sure.
Li Hao then set his sights on Fengzhuangku. Anyway, this was originally for the money that Emperor Taizu had saved to redeem the Sixteenth Prefecture of Yanyun.
Although after so many years, a lot of it has been squandered and used by successive emperors, there is still some left, and it can be used now.
And Li Hao really felt that the emperor should not keep too much money in his hands, otherwise something might happen.
Regarding Li Hao's proposal, Zhao Zonghan was quite generous and agreed directly.
But when Li Hao actually went to get it, he found that the silver in the pile was much less than he thought, which was better than nothing.
After everything was properly equipped, Li Hao formally decided in the court to start a campaign to regain the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun.
This time, Gu Tingye, Yang Wenyuan, and Li Yixing were the three commanders. A total of 380,000 troops were dispatched, and almost all the elite forbidden troops were dispatched.
And this does not include the hundreds of thousands of Xiang troops stationed in the north. If they were all added up, it would not be an exaggeration to call them one million.
The only pity is that as Prime Minister, Li Hao cannot visit the front line in person this time.
Li Hao was worried about letting others go to the front line to supervise military affairs, so this time Li Hao simply sent Sheng Hong out to sit in Zhending Mansion as the Hebei Xuanfu envoy to supervise local military affairs.
Of course, Sheng Hong was obedient, but his ability to do things was not that reassuring after all, so Li Hao asked Yan Fu, Yan Jingwen, and Zeng Gong to help him.
As for Hedong Road, Li Hao invited Zeng Gongliang to be the Hedong Xuanfu envoy to oversee military affairs in Taiyuan Mansion, and then asked Sheng Changbai and Qi Heng to take action.
As for Bianjing City, Li Hao really couldn't stay any longer, so he simply encouraged Zhao Zonghan to move the emperor to Daming Mansion, where he could closely watch the progress of the Liao-Song War.
In fact, the situation in the Liao Kingdom at this time was much worse than Li Hao originally expected, and its military strength was greatly reduced.
Facing the Song Army's large-scale attack, although they were prepared, they did not have enough power to counterattack for a while.
The progress on Hedong Road was extremely smooth. It only took three months to capture the city one after another and seize the Great Wall pass, blocking the Liao Kingdom's attack here from Shangjing Road.
However, the attack on Nanjing Road encountered some problems. Although Xijin Prefecture was captured, they later encountered the regrouping Liao army and ultimately failed to capture the Great Wall Pass in the first place.
The two armies fought fiercely in Jizhou and Tanzhou. At this time, the Liao Kingdom received continuous reinforcements from the Zhongjing Road.
After reaching this point, if the Great Wall level is not blocked, it will really become a competition in the end to see who has the strongest sustained ability.
Although Li Hao was confident that with so many years of accumulation, the Song Dynasty could consume the Liao Kingdom to death, but doing so would also cause great harm to the Song Dynasty.
Li Hao was reluctant to lose the family fortune he had worked so hard to build, so he completed his efforts in one battle instead of fighting a war of attrition.
Immediately, the troops stationed in various places were ordered to change defenses, and the Qinfeng and Yongxing military routes, which had relatively higher combat capabilities, were to take over the Shuofang and Zhenwu routes, and then the Shuofang and Zhenwu routes were allowed to take over the newly recovered Datong Prefecture.
Release Yang Wenyuan's troops to support Gu Tingye and the others.
In addition, a group of reinforcements were organized from various places in the north, confident that the An army would set out to attack Pingzhou, and then attack the enemies of Jizhou from both sides.
Even so, after a bloody battle, the Liao army was finally driven out of the Great Wall and completely recovered the sixteen states of Yanyun that had been lost for nearly 150 years.
At this point, Li Hao's original goal has basically been achieved. The next step is to manage the newly recovered area to appease the people's livelihood.
As for the next counterattack against the Liao Kingdom, it will have to wait for a while, and then the final reckoning will come.
By the way, Li Hao planned to deal with the Jurchen tribe together. Although according to the current trend, it is impossible for the Jin Kingdom to rise to its original state, let alone destroy the Song Dynasty.
But the main reason was that Li Hao kept this matter in his mind. He felt a little uncomfortable with others, so we should solve it together.
This reward was particularly generous due to Li Hao's promotion and Zhao Zonghan's excitement after regaining Yanyun's Sixteen Prefectures.
Gu Tingye was promoted from Ningyuan Marquis to Dai Guogong, and subsequently nine people were granted the title of earl, including Yuan Wenshao, Zhang Wen, Li Yixing and others.
As for Yang Wenyuan, he was not promoted to a noble title this time, but his food estates were also increased a lot.
But these are not the main points. After all, the credit this time is indeed too great, and everyone who has been awarded the title has nothing to say.
Until Li Hao took advantage of the situation and proposed that Gu Tingye be admitted to the Privy Council and take over as Tongzhi Privy Council, this caused controversy in the court.
It's just that this time Li Hao suppressed different opinions forcefully. Anyway, now he has the credit, and Gu Tingye's resume is also satisfactory.
Anyway, there are examples of military generals entering the Privy Council. Although the result of that person in the end was not very good, it is enough to have a good example.
On this matter, the military commander group is united. After all, it is good for them all to have Gu Tingye as the Privy Councilor.
In the end, with Zhao Zonghan's acquiescence, Gu Tingye took office smoothly and squeezed out Sheng Hong.
Of course, Li Hao did not treat Sheng Hong badly and arranged for Sheng Hong to be appointed to the Political Affairs Hall and the Minister of Household Affairs.
At this point, Li Hao has fulfilled his promise back then and helped the generals gain a higher political status.
After that, Gu Tingye stayed in the Privy Council for many years, presiding over a series of wars against the Liao Kingdom. Eventually, he reached the Changbai Mountain line in the east, tried to seal the wolf in Xu in the north, and opened up the Silk Road in the west.
Internally, Li Hao, who had been in charge of the Political Affairs Hall for more than thirty years, vigorously promoted the development of science and technology and developed the steam engine.
Although it may not be perfect yet, with the path pioneered by Li Hao, it is expected that subsequent development will be faster and faster.
At this time, the Song Dynasty had surpassed the glory of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and Li Hao's hard work for so many years was not in vain.
But at this time, Li Hao was also tired, and as relatives and friends around him left one by one, Li Hao was ready to enjoy life.
When Li Hao was in the Chengyuan, basking in the sun and thinking about the past, he fell asleep unknowingly.
When he opened his eyes again, Li Hao was a little confused, because everything in front of him seemed not right.
