(Thank you Jeamo, lion.22, simon_s, Piglet, and Dog for your support!) ）

The red sun slowly set in the mountains to the west, and the western sky was dyed crimson by the afterglow of the setting sun. A full moon has hung in the vast and deep eastern sky, sprinkling the cold moonlight, illuminating the way home for a row of tired birds returning late.

When it's time for dinner, the city of Derry is filled with white cooking smoke, and the pungent smell of firewood, dry horse manure and even burning coal is everywhere. The New Year is just around the corner, and even in the city of Delhi, which is thousands of miles away from the pass, it has begun to have a New Year's flavor.

As night fell, it was getting dark.

After dinner, Li Jing first went to Xingyuan to sit for a meeting, talked to a few important civil and military ministers who were in Delhi, listened to a few briefings in the chamber, and waited for the lamp to be held, and then he got up and went back to the backyard.

In the backyard, Gongsun Lanzheng, Megan and Julie sat on the kang and fought the landlord around the kang table. Now the weather is cold, the rivers and seas are frozen, and the ships of the sailors have basically retreated into the military port. At this time, the marshal of the water division became an ordinary family member of the army, and it was rare to stay in Delhi all day with Gongsun Lan and Julie, and throw all the affairs of the water division aside.

The three duchesses sat together, fighting the landlords, but like ordinary people, they were calculating and arguing there, and having fun. Seeing him coming, he had already been bombed twice, and Megan, who had already lost the landlord, rolled her eyes, and immediately slyly inserted the pair of three and a dozen bad cards on the table into the pile of cards on the table, stretched out a pair of jade hands and rushed over to hug Li Jing, and kissed him on the face.

"Saburo. You're finally willing to come back. Leave us here. But I ignored it all day, and I didn't even eat a meal together, hey, I was really bored to death, and I would go back to Vladivostok if I knew it. ”

Li Jing kissed her back and said with a smile: "Isn't it better to be so idle at home all day?" Besides, you're heavy now. You should take a good rest, which is suitable for running around. ”

In the summer, Megan and Julie led the sailors from the mouth of the Heilongjiang River all the way upstream, to the Songhua River to assist in the war, and they rarely stayed with Li Jing for a few months. By the time the autumn came, the two had already been pregnant, and even Gongsun Lan was also pregnant. Maybe it's because now outside this pass, Li Jing only has three fields left to cultivate, and he has more time to cultivate, so all three of them are pregnant. Wait for the autumn when the fleet withdraws. Li Jing simply left them all behind and handed over the fleet to Li Xu and other sailor generals.

Gongsun Lan stepped forward to help Li Jing take off her coat. I changed into a pair of warm wool slippers and got on the kang together.

"When will we end this war, I don't want to give birth to my child here." Gongsun Lan said.

Li Jing shook his head, "I hope it will end before the beginning of spring next year, as you can see, we have now completed the most important step, and the four armies have arrived at the designated position, preemptively intercepting the retreat of the tribal army's escape." Now that winter has begun, the tribal coalition has fought with us nine times in the best season of evacuation, when the autumn is high and the horses are fat, the rivers are shallow, the swamps are dry and hard, the roads are easy to walk, and the weather is clear. But although we have paid more than 100,000 losses, we have beaten these Hu people back, and until now, they have not broken our encirclement network on all sides. Now, the fighting is in winter, the weather is bitterly cold, the rivers are frozen, and the roads are covered with snow, and it is very difficult for the tribal coalition to retreat in such a season. ”

Gongsun Lan looked at Li Jing and smiled, took her eyes back, put away the cards neatly, and directly took the mahjong box again, opened the mahjong box, poured the mahjong on the table, and began to stack it. While stacking cards, he said: "But this winter is already the last chance for the tribal army to break through, they have been surrounded by us for half a year, and the logistics have been interrupted for so long, hundreds of thousands of people simply cannot survive this long winter and spring." If you don't break through now, you won't be able to wait until spring. At the moment, although it was cold, at least they could retreat north along the flat ice surface on the Shumoshui and Kuhan River, and then retreat further north from Nanshui and Heishui. But once the spring begins, when the weather warms up, the glaciers will thaw, and all the rivers will become a line of blockage to intercept their retreat. Those soft roads would become swamps that would swallow up countless Hu people, and by that time their horses would probably be too thin to look good, and the people would be almost hungry, and they would not be able to wait for the next autumn. In any case, after the failure of the Clan Army to break through this autumn, they can only break through this winter, and this is their last chance.

"The Hu people must fight the trapped beasts, this is their last chance, can we stop them? In the several battles in the autumn, we fought with them for almost equal losses, and we suffered more than 100,000 casualties. If the Hu people go all out to break through, I'm afraid we may not be able to stop them. ”

"If you want to stop it, the key is how much loss you have to pay." Li Jing skillfully built the Great Wall, and it became almost inevitable to accompany several women to play mahjong every night. Although Delhi is a large city, it is only a military fortress, and at the beginning of the invasion of the Hu people, they plundered it, making it a fortress with only military use. Winters here are extremely cold, with temperatures reaching minus forty or fifty degrees Celsius, and no one wants to go out unless it is necessary.

"But we can't waste all our precious troops here." Julie said, "Even if the Hu people can break through this time, it will almost be difficult to fight against us again." In such a winter, we can completely let them go, and the severe cold of winter and the shortage of food can make them frostbite and starve half of them to death. We don't have to fight them at all to force them to retreat. I feel that by now, our goal has been achieved. We sent troops to contain the tribes from moving south, in order to swallow the Bohai Sea, not to expect to destroy the coalition of hundreds of tribes in one fell swoop at this time. This is unrealistic, and if we push too hard, we will pay more losses. In the autumn battle, we lost more than 100,000 people, but fortunately, most of these losses were Bohai and surrendered tribal soldiers. But if you have to fight again this time. I'm afraid that we ourselves will inevitably pay a lot of casualties. ”

In fact, this concept is now the thinking of a large part of the soldiers in the army. In everyone's opinion. In such a vast place outside the pass, it is impossible to really cut down the grass and eradicate the roots, and for those Hu people, they can at most defeat and drive them to the bitter cold land further north. Especially for the soldiers who have been stationed in the Bohai Sea for three years, they are already a little tired of this battle, tired of the severe cold in the north, tired of everything here. They felt. There is no point in continuing to fight here.

This sentiment is spreading, and Li Jing clearly knows that he must end this battle before the arrival of next summer and start the class in the fall. In addition to the emotions of the soldiers, what made Li Jing make this kind of plan was also the news from the Central Plains.

Huang Chao is dead, his Qi empire has collapsed, and the Yang brothers have now integrated a powerful alliance that stretches from Guanzhong to Henan to Shannan Jingnan. To the east of the river, they owned more than 20 feudal towns. It can be said that they occupy half of the map of the world's feudal towns, and in the Battle of Chang'an alone, they have gathered the strength of thousands of capitals, and the number of soldiers has reached 400,000. Even in the rabble, this potential force has begun to show great strength.

Although Li Jing understands that this alliance aimed at Huangchao is still very loose in a short period of time, and it is impossible to integrate it tightly immediately. But it's also clear that it won't take much time for them to integrate. The information sent from the Central Plains has shown that the Yang brothers are already planning to establish the emperor's seventh brother, Shouwang Li Jie, as the son of heaven, and want to abolish the one in Tian Lingzi's hands.

It is conceivable that after the Yang brothers really set up a new son of heaven, after the integration of their alliance is completed, they will definitely attack the outside, and the direction will be either Tian Lingzi in the southwest or Li Jing in the northeast.

In such a situation, Li Jing did not dare to guarantee that the Yang brothers would not do anything to him. Especially when he is now putting hundreds of thousands of horses outside the gate, this is an excellent opportunity for the Yang brothers no matter how you look at it.

"Many soldiers can't adapt to such a cold weather, stay in the fortified barracks all day, they are still shivering with cold, in such a season, let them go out to fight, it is estimated that most of them will be directly frozen to death and frostbite." Gongsun Lan asked a very practical question. The winter in Haidong is too cold, and for most of the soldiers who come from Kannai, this ghost place is extremely cold for most of the rest of the year, except for a brief period of warmth and comfort in summer. Especially in winter, when the air turns into ice, the snow in the wild is nearly human-high. In such a season, the biggest enemy is not the tribal alliance, but God.

"Indeed, this is the biggest problem, the severe cold weather, and the soldiers of our army, mainly from the Kannai who have not yet been able to adapt to the severe cold of Haidong. But if it's just this one problem, it's better. Li Jing grabbed a 90,000 in his hand, and struck an 80,000 card with 90,000, and then a 70,000, and he could make a 10,000-character card. In fact, Qin Jun had already expected this problem. So far, not long ago, Li Jing sent 50,000 soldiers and horses and 100,000 people to the area where the Nenjiang and Songhua rivers meet in the north of Fuyu, of which 50,000 soldiers and horses, except for more than 10,000 were recruited from the Guannei, the rest were recruited from the four provinces of Liaodong, Liaoxi, Andong and Rehe, and half of them were tribal warriors.

"The 50,000 new recruits recruited in the autumn are basically soldiers from the eastern Liaodong region, mainly tribal soldiers, and in addition, we have recruited 100,000 new soldiers from Bohai, all of which can adapt to the cold weather in the northeast. These 50,000 soldiers and horses and 100,000 people will replenish the Da'an front in northern Buyeo. ”

Despite all the efforts made, there is still a big problem.

If the tribal alliance really wants to desperately break through this winter, it will be difficult for the Qin army to guess the direction of their breakthrough, and the battle line of thousands of miles is too wide. Although they will break through along several large rivers, the northeast side of Delhi is fine, there are a large number of hills, and Delhi guards this narrow plain in the river valley, and can squat at leisure. But in the northwest, outside the convergence of the Nenjiang River and the Songhua River, it is the Songnen Plain area of the three major plains in the northeast, which is full of endless plains, if it is spring and summer, the continuous swamps and lakes here will also be a place of death, only a few muddy roads, but if it is in winter, although there is thick snow, they can choose any place to break through in the direction of thousands of miles.

Li Jing can't intercept everywhere he is, which is unrealistic.

Now, the only thing Li Jing can do is to establish a defensive line along several important rivers such as the Songhua River, the Nenjiang River, and the Mudanjiang River, and gather troops and horses to defend those rivers. Instead of giving these roads to the coalition forces, but forcing them to return north from those thick snow-covered plains, Li Jing planned to use these harsh cold unique to the eastern desert north of the Saiwaihai Sea to deal with these tribal armies, and the Qin army would hold the fortresses one by one, and then deploy those tribal soldiers and Bohai soldiers under the command of the Qin army in the northernmost part, so that they could intercept and chase the coalition forces.

In any case, although the final battle has not yet begun, Li Jing has already won the victory. Although the victory was somewhat imperfect, it was sufficient, and the tribal army could not continue to stay in the Bohai Sea, and they had to retreat further north. Their strength will inevitably be greatly damaged, and after several years of fighting, the Bohai Kingdom has completely become a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

The Qin army's several years of war in the northeast have come to fruition, and the tribe will be greatly damaged and will withdraw further north and west, and the entire Bohai country will be occupied by the Qin army. By the autumn of next year, the Qin army could withdraw the main force to Guannai, and then send a few small elite troops north to drive those tribes farther away.

Gongsun Lan was a little surprised, "You are willing to accept such a result, this is a bit imperfect." ”

Li Jing grabbed a card, touched his fingers, and slapped it on the table with a smile: "Seventy thousand, in case of color, self-draw, give money!" ”

The three women all pouted, they knew that Li Jing was doing what they wanted, so everyone refused to play according to the ten thousand words, who knew that he could still touch it, and it was the last 70,000.

Li Jing happily counted the banknotes, "I know enough, the plan we made before was too big, in fact, a big war of one million people is very difficult to fight." Because, in such a big war, the biggest enemy is not the other party, but ourselves, logistics supplies, etc., and for our campaign this time, in addition to supplies, there is also bad weather. To swallow up the other side's army, we all need more troops, but in this weather, we simply can't gather more troops, weather is one of them, and logistics has become the most critical issue. Therefore, until now, there is actually no decisive battle at all. We had already won by cutting off their supply lines, and although we could not achieve a bigger victory, with the help of the weather, the result was already good. Although the process is very different from our plan, the result will be the same at best. We have won, and the Hu people have been defeated by this, and they will no longer be able to threaten us! See, just like this hand, you've been stuck with my 70,000, but in the end I got the last 70,000 myself. ”

"You have recruited so many tribal warriors and Bohai people, can these people be trusted?"

"Well, there may be a little trouble, but there will never be a big problem. Just like the thirteen tribal cavalry recruits some time ago, they will do some surprising things, but if we deal with them quickly and correctly, then these people will eventually be tamed by us like wild horses and used by us. Li Jing chuckled and said. (To be continued......)