One by one, the artillery team stepped forward and demonstrated the firing of the artillery in turn. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Cheng Qian's mouth opened wider and wider, and finally closed it completely.

"Teacher, are these artillery, they're amazing."

Li Chao smiled, of course it was amazing. These cannons are all made of copper, and the currency of Datang is copper, which means that these cannons are really made of money.

Datang has always Kaiyuan Tongbao six catties and four taels, the new Zhenguan copper coin has less copper content, and there are always five catties of copper. And a mortar cannon is hundreds of catties, which means that the cost of copper alone is worth more than 100 yuan, not to mention that casting such a large cannon requires a high technical content and a high manufacturing cost.

Even if it is a small flat cannon, it has thirty-six pounds. It is precisely because of the extremely high cost and the difficulty of manufacturing that there are not many guns in the Shenji Army now.

Cheng Qian also wanted the Tang Dynasty army to be equipped with muskets and artillery, but Li Chao vetoed it. Datang wants to expand its army by 800,000, and if it really wants to do this, it can't afford to go bankrupt.

Moreover, firearms troops, militia units such as government soldiers, are not suitable. It is still the early days of the dynasty, and there are many battles, and the government soldiers have more experience in battle formations, but when there are fewer battles in the future, the lack of training and inexperience will not be able to exert the power of firearms.

It is still a standing force of the forbidden army like the Shenji Army, and it is well equipped with firearms. In addition, the cost of firearms is still too high, and it will not be easy to get this magic weapon unit.

The review was very successful, and the people were enthusiastic about it anyway.

When he returned to the city, Cheng Qian pulled Li Chao to ride in the chariot.

"Is it His Highness's intention to summon the ministers back?" Li Chao couldn't help but ask.

Originally, Li Chao received the order to return to the dynasty after recovering Monan, but Li Chao finally went to the notebook and asked to settle there before returning.

In the end, the imperial court agreed, and Li Chao's handling of the Turkic surrender of Monan, as well as the transitional handover of Liaoxi, was already in July. The court urged him to enter the court again, and Li Chao had no choice but to hand over the rest of the things to the locality, and then the class teacher returned to the court.

"Actually, it's my father's intention."

Cheng Qian didn't hide it from Li Chao.

"What's going on?"

Li Shimin is still pretending to be sick, he seems to be pretending to be sick and addicted, or the performance of the prince and the regent of the crown prince is too good, so he is happy to be behind the scenes.

However, there have been a few things recently that made Li Shimin a little stunned.

"The allied army of the Southwest Domain led by Lu Guogong suffered a loss after attacking Tibet!"

Lu Guogong is Cheng Biting Jin, one step earlier than Li Chao, he and Hou Junji led 20,000 Tang troops, and gathered 100,000 coalition troops from more than a dozen southwestern Tang vassal states such as Tuyuhun, Dongnuguo, Bailan, and White Wolf to jointly crusade against Tubo.

At the beginning, it was also like a bamboo, and the road was smooth and smooth.

In addition, Li Chao asked Prince Sun Bo to go back to connect in the women's country, but the situation is also very good.

It's just that after the army goes deeper, problems slowly appear. First, there is the problem of supply, because there are few people in Tibetan areas, and it is difficult to supply. The second is the problem of altitude reaction, although those vassal coalition forces all live on the edge of the plateau, and the altitude sickness is not so serious, but the deeper it goes, the more severe this reaction is.

At this time, Cheng Biting Jin is also ruthless, as long as the tribe is found, no matter how big or small, it will be killed. Killing, taking livestock. Relying on this trick to feed the war, because the enemy has food, but it supports the march.

But when Hou Junji led his men and horses to pursue a tribe recently, he fell into a trick to lure the enemy and was ambushed. suffered heavy losses and was surrounded, but fortunately, Cheng Yanjin led the army to arrive, and finally repelled the Tubo army and rescued Hou Junji.

As a result, after Hou Junji was saved, not only did he not thank Cheng Biting Jin for relieving the siege, but reported to the court with a secret recital, saying that Cheng Biting Jin was stubborn in Tubo for his own use, insisted on going his own way, and killed innocents indiscriminately. He also underestimated the enemy's ambush, saying that it was forced by Cheng Jin's wrong command and so on.

This guy also instigated the vassal army to retreat, which led to the current coalition army that was crusading against Tibet falling into chaos. The Tibetans seized this opportunity and led their army to raid the coalition army.

It was Hou Junji again, after the attack, he did not obey Cheng Yanjin's command, but was the first to run away with his own men and horses, causing other vassal armies to retreat one after another, which made Cheng Yanjin almost fall into a heavy siege, and he ran out of the siege desperately, but he also suffered heavy losses.

Now that the coalition forces are in civil strife, Hou Junji ran to Longxi in one go, Cheng Yanjin retreated to Longnan, and the other vassal departments also withdrew their troops back. It's a good situation, but it's embarrassing.

Now Cheng Yanjin and Hou Junji, the two generals of the Southern Expedition, are beating each other in the ring every day, attacking and accusing each other.

"This matter is obviously a problem with Hou Junji, he is a deputy general, but he shakes the majesty of the main general, if I am Cheng biting gold, I will directly behead Hou Junji."

Cheng Qian also didn't like Hou Junji.

"So Hou Junji ran fast and went directly to Longxi. Now he has all kinds of impeachments against General Cheng for indiscriminate killing, blind command, and so on. On the side of the imperial court, it was also unclear about the situation for a while, and it had to be investigated before making a decision. ”

Having said that, Li Chao believes that this Hou Junji must still have Li Shimin in his protection. Otherwise, if something like this happens, no matter what the facts are, Hou Junji will definitely have to be transferred back to Beijing to check first.

In the final analysis, Hou Junji is still Li Shimin's hardcore confidant. Li Shimin will not give up this henchman easily, but because of this stinky rat, it is really a dog to make the situation of the southern expedition so embarrassed.

"And Moxi, it's also quite troublesome." Cheng Qian talked about another thing.

After Mo Helu received the promise of the Tang Dynasty, he launched a rebellion when Tong Yehu was conquering Xue Yantuo in Mobei. As a result, he failed to take down Yehu at the first time, and as a result, the rebellion failed to succeed for a while, and Tong Yehu led the army back to the Western Regions, and Mo He couldn't beat Tongye Hu's father and son.

Fortunately, the Tang army insisted on supporting Mo Helu, but it also allowed him to withstand the offensive.

But recently, Mo Hedu has suffered defeats in a row, lost his troops and lost countless territories, and he is about to finish the game.

"Your Majesty plans to conquer the Western Regions in person!"

Li Chao frowned, how did Li Shimin think about it.

"Even if Mo Hedu's army is defeated, it is not yet time for our Tang Dynasty to make a move, Your Majesty can completely transfer Tu Gu Hun, Xue Yantuo, and even the Xi, Khitan, and Murwei departments to send troops to attack Tongye Hu."

Datang's early entry is not beneficial, it is better to drive those parties to fight.

Drive the tiger and devour the wolf, anyway, whether the wolf wins or the tiger wins, the biggest benefit in the end is Datang.

Li Shimin is in a hurry to conquer the Western Regions, which is a bit too anxious.

"Your Majesty's intention to personally conquer is very strong."

"Your Majesty wants to personally conquer the Western Regions, let you follow the expedition and be the marshal of the Western Expedition."

"Is there no room for manoeuvre in this matter?" Li Chao asked.

Cheng Qian shook his head, "All the prime ministers have also persuaded hard, but Your Majesty has made up his mind." ”