"Cannon fodder, pawns crossing the river?"

Hearing Liu Xing's words, his eyes rolled, and he looked at Liu Xing and said, "Are you saying that Yue Fei's move is only to startle the grass and snakes, and to send those Shangshang soldiers to death." If the tribes of the steppe are interested, they will immediately come up to surrender to our court, and then turn around and help me destroy the Tatars. If he doesn't know the fun, will he enter the desert with a million heroes? ”

Millions of male divisions, yes, this is now Yue Fei openly shouted out, and it is also Liu Xing who asked the breeder to accompany him and Ma Kuo to shout out the number of soldiers and horses that will be used to attack the prairie.

Millions of soldiers, bluffing? No, because Liu Xing knew very well that as long as Yue Fei started in Suiyuan, he would inevitably move his whole body.

Hebei under Yang Yizhong in the east, Ningxia under Liu Jian in the west, Shaanxi in the southwest, and Shanxi in the south will all become the in-depth supply combat force behind his army because of Yue Fei's army.

240,000 in Suiyuan, 280,000 in Ningxia, 200,000 in Shanxi, plus 80,000 people left in Hebei by Yang Yizhong. Just the total number of regular troops of the Northern Forbidden Army and the Border Army has reached 800,000.

Although Yue Fei had no right to really let Liu Qi, Liu Ziyu and Yang Yizhong's troops obey his instructions, as long as Liu Xing authorized or gave an order, it was also possible for Liu Qi and Liu Ziyu to enter the desert at any time after the Suiyuan army.

Therefore, it is not a bluff to say that there are 800,000 regular troops and one million.

What's more, Yue Fei's current approach has fully understood the true intention of Liu Xing's series of new policies, new laws, and new regulations, and he has mobilized the local business groups and people in Suiyuan to join the battle of the Northern Expedition before the battle.

The power of example is endless, and Liu Xing firmly believes that Yue Fei has made such a good example. Once it is really necessary for Liu Qi and Liu Ziyu to take action, they will also join the war with the Tatar tribe. Surely they would follow the same example and draw gourds in their autonomous provinces to mobilize merchants and civilians to join the war.

If that day comes. The number of millions is not only not a bluff, but it can even be a propaganda that hides an endless backhand.

The Shanxi merchant group was now the richest group of merchants in the Great Song Dynasty, and the Jin merchants were to directly participate in the Northern Expedition against Tatar. Because the Hunter Valley was the head of the Jin merchant group, Liu Xing knew very well that the Suiyuan merchants could make up 84,000 merchant group soldiers in one day, and the Jin merchant group would be at least twice as much.

And what about Ningxia? After Li Ren'ai returned to the south, many of the original dignitaries and nobles of Western Xia were not ordered by Liu Xing to enter the Central Plains, and even issued an order to let those party nobles and tribal leaders stay in place, and change their officials to merchants to deeply root their own territory and develop Ningxia.

The ferocity of the party members. Now the battlefield in Hubei and Huainan West Road has been undoubtedly reflected. Once the Ningxia merchant group composed of former Western Xia nobles who remained in Ningxia also joined the Northern Expedition to the desert, Liu Xing estimated that they could calmly assemble a new 100,000 party soldiers.

In this way, there are 80,000 merchant soldiers in Suiyuan, 100,000 party merchant soldiers in Ningxia and 15 or 60,000 merchant soldiers in Shanxi. If the war really reached the point where it was necessary to expand to the three provinces at the same time, there would be 350,000 to 400,000 merchant soldiers who could be sent directly to the front.

After the expansion of the war, the total number of regular troops and merchant soldiers had exceeded one million, reaching about 1.2 million. What if you count the merchant regiments and the available regular armies in the other four provinces under Liu Ziyu and Liu Qi? And what if we put in the people who were bound to be hired to join the supply transport?

Liu Xing was very confident that if the group of horse wranglers on the grassland dared to resist stubbornly, as long as he gave an order, the Northern Expedition of the Great Song Dynasty would be the largest foreign expedition with three million people in ancient times.

From the information obtained from Ma Kuo and the Military Intelligence Department, Liu Xing knew that the thirteen major tribes on the grassland together now only had nine million people.

How many troops can be sent by nine million people, no matter how strong the steppe people are, at most they can only prevent an army of millions of men and women from going into battle.

Although the Great Song Dynasty did not have a truly invincible cavalry available. But there are extremely sharp firearms. Three million to a million, if it is really the day of full-scale war. Liu Xing seems to have seen the entire grassland people wiped out, and the depths of the vast desert have also become a new scene like Ningxia and Suiyuan......

Liu Xing knew this, and of course he also knew it, so he asked.

Hearing his question, Liu Xing nodded heavily: "Yes, if those guys who are herding horses on the grassland are interested, the master will only kill Tatar and stop it." If you don't know the fun, I don't mind letting Yue Fei gallop across the prairie and turn the desert into my Great Song Dynasty's horse ranch. ”

After a slight pause in his words, Liu Xing turned to say again: "Yue Fei is very smart, I didn't misunderstand him. If he succeeded in striking the grass and the snakes, knocking on the mountains and shaking the tigers, and when the horse reached the tent of the Khan of the Mughal Kingdom, it was believed that the leaders of the other tribes had already run to the front of the Khan before him to make a mess. In that way, Ma Kuo will go, and if you want to come, you can get twice the result with half the effort. ”

What Ma Kuo does can do with half the effort, what does Ma Kuo do? It was to appease the Mengwu Kingdom and to do preliminary work for Liu Xing's bigger plan.

If the Mengwu Kingdom was shocked by Yue Fei and returned without a fight, for the Great Song Dynasty, there would be no strong enemies on the road to rejuvenation in the future, and there would probably be an additional cannon fodder army that was large enough, just like those merchant soldiers now......

Hui knew Liu Xing's thoughts very well, but he still said with some concern: "But among the more than 80,000 merchant soldiers, how many of them are people from the rivers and lakes!" If you go to the desert and never return, not to mention that their respective homes have no one to take care of since then, then I am afraid that there will be many people in the various sects on the rivers and lakes who will see through Yue Fei's thoughts and hate the general Yue who you admire and trust, right? ”

The merchant soldiers never returned, and their families were left unattended. This is a fact, and it is also another big pit dug by Liu Xing for those merchants when he decided to let the volunteers and merchant groups open up the territory and exchange the territory for the lord.

Because according to that decree and the "Rules for the Recruitment and Management of Mercenary Soldiers" hurriedly made by Hu Anguo and his people, merchants can only give one-time compensation when their mercenaries die in battle, and they are not allowed to follow the imperial court to give lifelong or even generational guarantees to the families of those mercenaries who died in battle.

The reason for this provision is that Liu Xing's subjective thinking is not to give businessmen the opportunity to truly grasp the hearts of the people and the army. Hu Anguo's idea is that the businessmen are poorer in three ways and richer in the fifth, and no businessman can guarantee that his generations will be rich, and naturally he cannot guarantee the long-term security for the families and descendants of those mercenaries who died in battle. (To be continued.) )