Fenghou

Chapter 483 Xining
In the wilderness outside the Guichuan Silver Mine, three thousand Song troops led by Li Muqing had quietly arrived under the cover of night.

After Lanzhou completely wiped out the Xixia Army, Chen Qing gave Li Muqing an order to find a suitable time to recapture the Sichuan Silver Mine and completely wipe out the Huangzhou Army.

Prisoners of war are acceptable, but Ren Zhongqun can't let him escape this time.

The guide who led the way for Li Muqing was Jiang Xin, the undersecretary of Wu Hongwei, the magistrate of Di Dao County, and he was very familiar with the silver mine. Chen Qing appointed him as the steward of the silver mine before, and Ren Zhongqun led the army to return to the silver mine. Jiang Xin was also forced to flee. Back to Didao County.

Jiang Xin pointed to the hillside in front of him and said: "When you go up the hill, you can see the army camp. There is a small official road to the north of the camp, leading to Hezhou. Once there is a fight, the enemy will definitely flee there."

Li Muqing asked, "Is there a detour?"

Jiang Xin nodded, "There is a path!"

Li Muqing said to Lieutenant General Tang Jingyang: "General Tang led a thousand soldiers to go around the path and block the enemy from fleeing to Hezhou."

"Follow your orders!"

Li Muqing smiled at Jiang Xin: "Could Manager Jiang take General Tang there, is one hour enough?"

"enough!"

"Well, at five o'clock, I will officially launch an attack!"

Tang Jingyang and Jiang Xin left quickly with a thousand soldiers, and Li Muqing waited patiently for the time to pass.

At five o'clock, Li Muqing led two thousand soldiers and rushed up the hillside from the side.

Rushing up the hillside, there is an open land on the mountainside in front of you, and an abandoned silver mine on the left. More than [-] camp tents are stationed in the open space more than [-] steps away, and there are camp fences and sentry posts around.

The military camp occupies a large area, and at least [-] people can be stationed there, but currently only [-] Huangzhou troops are stationed in the camp.

Before dawn, Li Muqing led [-] soldiers to run quickly in the night, about a hundred steps away from the camp, when the bell on the sentry post rang suddenly.

'when!when!when! 'They were spotted by sentries.

"Shoot gunpowder arrows!"

Li Muqing gave an order, and two thousand soldiers fired gunpowder arrows towards the camp together. The dense gunpowder arrows streaked across the sky like red meteors.

The camp was on fire, and many soldiers were shot by gunpowder arrows. There were screams and exclamations everywhere, and the camp was in chaos.

"Kill in!"

Li Muqing led two thousand soldiers towards the main gate of the camp.

"One, two, three, boom!"

The soldiers smashed open the gate with their thick giant logs and rushed in. The camp was already in flames, and the figures of countless soldiers ran around in the flames.

When the Song army entered the camp, more than [-] soldiers who were about to break out from the east were so frightened that they knelt down and begged for mercy.

Li Muqing left [-] soldiers to guard the prisoners, and [-] more to clear the camp. He led the army to continue the pursuit.

Sure enough, Jiang Xin was right. The west gate of the camp was wide open, and most of the soldiers escaped through the west gate.

The soldiers fled to the west along an official road, but within two miles, the front suddenly burst into flames.

At this time, the Song army also came chasing and killing them from behind. There were interceptions before, and later they pursued. Many of the hundreds of soldiers were bare-handed, unarmed, and without armor. Seeing that they were desperate, the soldiers knelt down and begged for mercy.

At dawn, the Song army escorted more than [-] prisoners of war to the open space, but no figure of Ren Zhongqun was found among the prisoners of war, which immediately put Li Muqing under tremendous pressure.

He immediately ordered the army to search everywhere, "Search every corner, every mine is not allowed!"

At this moment, Jiang Xin, the steward, ran out of breath and said, "General Li, I found Ren Zhongqun!"

Li Muqing was overjoyed, and asked anxiously, "Where is it?"

"Over there in the miners' quarters, but...but he's been beaten to death by the miners."

Li Muqing hurriedly led his men to the mining area. It didn't matter that Ren Zhongqun was dead, but he had to see people in his life, and he had to see his corpse in his death.

Three corpses appeared on the open space in front of the gate of the mining area. It was Ren Zhongqun and his two stewards. When Song Jun killed them, the three of them hid in the mining area before they had time to escape. They were killed by hundreds of people who came out to watch the excitement. discovered by miners.

The angry miners saw Ren Zhongqun and two stewards who were alone. Hundreds of people raised their sticks and beat the three of them to death.

Li Muqing led hundreds of soldiers to arrive, only to see a dead body hanging on each of the three wooden stakes, Jiang Xin pointed to the middle-aged, tall and thin middle-aged man and said: "This is Ren Zhongqun, who is usually full of evil, so today's end .”

Ren Zhongqun stared at the sky blankly. He never imagined that after so many years of hard work, he smelted [-] catties of crude silver, but in the end he made Chen Qing's wedding dress for nothing.

At this time, Chen Qing led an army of [-] to Xining Prefecture. Xining Prefecture is today's Xining area. This is the edge of the Hehuang Valley. , the snow-capped mountains shone with magnificent golden light.

Xining Prefecture and Huangzhou were integrated in the Tang Dynasty, collectively referred to as Shanzhou, where the Longyou Jiedu Mansion was located.

During the time of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, it was restored by the Song Dynasty as Longyou Duhufu, and it was also the westernmost frontier state of the Song Dynasty, while Jishi Prefecture was in the south of Xining Prefecture.

Xining City, also known as Qingtang City, was once the capital of the Qingtang Dynasty. After the dissolution of the Qingtang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty seized the opportunity to restore Xihe Road and migrated a large number of Han people to Xihe Road.

Both Huangzhou City and Xining City were the main places where Han people migrated. A large number of Han people planted wheat in the Hehuang Valley, which ensured the military rations of the Xihe Army.

Ren Dejing's army originally stationed in Xining Prefecture had been defeated by the Song army. When Chen Qing's army arrived in Xining City, the general judge Feng Quan led the civil officials to come out and ask for surrender.

Feng Quan was actually an official appointed by the puppet state of Qi. He was about thirty-five or sixteen years old. He was the grandson-in-law of Wang Hou. After that, he was invited out to serve as the general judge of Xining Prefecture.

Most of Chen Qing's confidantes were officials from the Puppet State of Qi. Feng Quan was a local, and Wang Hou's grandson-in-law, with a good reputation, so Chen Qing didn't plan to change people.

When everyone heard that the Jiedu envoy would not hold them accountable for surrendering, and continued to let them take up their duties, everyone's hearts were hanging in the air, and they were overjoyed, and surrounded Chen Qing to inspect the city.

Feng Quan listened to Chen Qing's question about the Zhizhou, and quickly explained: "Jiedu envoys don't know something. The Zhizhou of Xining Prefecture, Huangzhou, and Kuozhou are all concurrently served by Ren Dejing. There is only general judgment in the state."

Chen Qing nodded and said with a smile: "I only stayed in Huangzhou City for one day before leaving, so I don't know these things. How many people are there in the city, how many Han people?"

"Reporting to the Jiedushi, Xining prefecture has about [-] people and [-] households, and they are basically concentrated in Xining County. Among them, Han people account for [-]%, and the other three are Qiang people and Tubo people."

Chen Qing saw that although the city was large, it was relatively deserted, and asked with a smile, "The business here seems not as prosperous as Huangzhou City."

Feng Quan smiled wryly and said: "The business here is mainly traded with Tubo people, and Huangzhou City is the end of the Silk Road. A large number of merchants from the Western Regions are concentrated in Huangzhou. Xining City is definitely not as good as Huangzhou City. But in a few days, it will be lively here."

"why?"

"The ice and snow on the West Sea side are beginning to melt, and a large number of Tubo merchants will come here with their camels to trade, buy daily necessities and grain, and sell sheepskins, sheep wine, dairy products, and medicinal materials."

At this time, Chen Qing had already seen a caravan of Tubo people appearing on the street. He asked curiously, "Don't the Tubo people use yaks to carry their loads? How could it be camels?"

Feng Quan chuckled, "The Tibetans in the plateau used yaks, and the Tibetans in the Qingtang Dynasty used horses at first, but in recent years they started to use camels, because camels can carry a lot of cargo."

Chen Qing nodded and asked again: "Apart from food, what else is Xining Prefecture rich in?"

"Reporting to Jiedushi, it was originally rich in salt!"

Feng Quan sighed, "Xining Prefecture was originally the largest salt producing area on Xihe Road, but now it is in big trouble."

[There was a small clerical error earlier, Xining Prefecture was written as Xi'an Prefecture. 】

(End of this chapter)