In terms of identity, although King Sun Bi is a prince, there are no other princes in the court now, so he is only slightly lower than the prince. Moreover, compared with other princes, he still has considerable power and has enough helpers in the court, which is stronger than other princes or nobles.

In terms of ability, Sun Bi once led troops in the southwest. In recent years, he has shown his insights and strength in military affairs in the court. Even today's emperors have praised him for understanding soldiers several times.

In addition, he has the will and responsibility to eliminate the disasters in northern Xinjiang for the Great Vietnamese. It can be said that there is really no more suitable candidate in the court.

After this statement, even Xu Cang was a little moved: "It seems that the prince is really likely to take on this important task this time and lead the troops to the north as the commander!"

Li Ling smiled bitterly after drinking a sip of wine, "There are still several problems that need to be solved. The most critical one is the court, or His Majesty is willing to fight the Northern Expedition. After all, it is just a chaos within the Guirong people, which may be an opportunity, but the active Northern Expedition will consume much more of the national strength of our Great Yue than the previous resistance to the Guirong invasion... In just a few years, Huguang and other places have just experienced disaster years, and everyone will always have some concerns.

"And more importantly, you and I support the prince's Northern Expedition because I believe that once the Guirong people are truly united, they will inevitably become a concern for my great Yue. But the question is, will the court really believe it?"

Xu Cang was stunned. It was really hard to say. In fact, even before he talked about these things with Li Ling, he didn't realize how much threat Gui Rong would be. As for the people in the court, it was naturally almost the same.

Li Ling continued: "This is just the first point. The second is that there must be too many people in the court who do not want to see the prince get such an opportunity that can truly threaten the position of the prince.

"Once the prince really gains military power, his reputation among the government and the country will inevitably increase significantly, and it will give many people a view that this is His Majesty paving the way for him to be crowned the crown prince. After all, the life of the prince has been very difficult recently. There are legends that he wants to depose the crown prince. Now the prince suddenly appears, which will only deepen this view. How could the prince and his followers be willing to be willing?

"Even if the prince did not destroy the Guirong and made great contributions to the court to expand territory, the identity of the commander of the Northern Expedition three armies alone would be disturbing enough, not to mention that he might have made great contributions that had not been seen in decades. So in the end, this matter is still difficult..."

After analyzing it, Li Ling also fell into silence after his expression became dim. Because he suddenly realized that his concern might really happen. Although this was extremely unfavorable for Sun Bi, what he cared more was that after missing the opportunity, it would bring irreparable harm to the Dayue and the Central Plains world.

Once the Mobei region is truly unified as they are worried, and the Guirong tribes form a joint force. When they invade, it will be really dangerous to go across the country.

In the end, he could only laugh at himself: "Actually, no matter how much you and I say here, it's useless. I'm already here and I'll have more than two years to return to the court. As for you, you're also a slight person, and you can only talk about it on paper. What can you change?"

When Xu Cang heard this, he felt even more depressed and said worriedly: "Is there really nothing I can do?"

"There may be a solution. For example, at this time, there are further information about the merger of Guirong and a large-scale invasion of our dynasty. Or there is a chaos in the border, and there is an important city that has been lost. In this way, in order to stabilize the country, Your Majesty will still resist the opposition and let the prince take charge of the Northern Expedition."

In Li Ling's opinion, the probability of these two possible come true is very slim, because the information that Dayue's spies in Mobei can find is actually very limited, and Gui Rong cannot even take out his hands to capture Dayue's border town during his own civil war.

But sometimes things in the world are so wonderful. When you think things cannot happen, they happen.

Just as the new year arrived, people visited relatives and friends in the first lunar month to celebrate the festival, on the Lantern Festival, the county government received the first residence report this year. When they saw it, the whole government was shocked. Soon, the magistrate of Jiangcheng County Tian Bingwen headed straight to Li's mansion in a sedan chair.

At that time, Li Ling was chatting and laughing with his family. He was surprised when he heard the county magistrate suddenly visited, but he still asked Li Xu to invite the person to the front hall to serve tea, and he went over to see him later.

As soon as he saw Li Ling, County Magistrate Tian handed over the mansion report in his hand without saying a word and said, "Please look at it, Lord Li... There was a big incident in the northern border before the New Year!"

"What?" Li Ling looked even more surprised. He had talked to Xu Cang about the concerns about the northern border not long ago. What happened? When he took the newspaper and looked carefully, his face was even more shocked. He didn't expect that he would really turn back on the crow's mouth this time, and it was really true.

Just before the New Year, the Guirong army invaded the northern border. Not only did they catch the border army off guard, but they also broke into several cities, but they finally managed to attack Xuanzhou City, which was very meaningful to break through this important town in the northern border!

"How could this be..." Li Ling was a little confused. The development of this matter was so fast that it was so fast that it made him a little difficult to accept. It was not until County Magistrate Tian called him several times that he came to his senses. He only heard the other party say, "Mr. Li, the county magistrate heard that you have made great military achievements in the northern border. I believe you have a good understanding of the military affairs of the northern border. I wonder what you think about this? For example, should we counties be prepared?" This is the reason why he was rushing to report to Li Ling. Reporting is one aspect, and asking for advice is true.

Li Ling pondered for a moment and understood what he meant: "Mr. Tian County is not too worried. In recent years, our logistics transportation to northern Xinjiang has already been complete. At least for the time being, the court will not collect money, grain and civil servants from the people below. What you have to do is to stabilize the place and prevent some stingy from messing with the hearts of the people."

Tian Bingwen also agreed with it when he heard it, but then said, "But if the people know that something happened in the northern border, they will inevitably be worried. How should I stop it?"

"It is better to be clear than blocking. People must not be forbidden to discuss this matter. On the contrary, what our government has to do is to make the situation in the northern border public in a timely manner. Even if anyone wants to disrupt the hearts of our people, it is difficult to have a chance. For example, this mansion report can be posted tomorrow, and then sent someone to preach to the people in the city. There are tens of thousands of border troops in Xuanzhou City, so it should not be difficult to defend the city. And it is only waiting for our border troops to react and gather. In addition, the Central Plains army is mobilized to go north and defeat the enemy is only in front of us, and it will not affect the Central Plains at all." Li Ling immediately gave his own countermeasures. His consistent proposition is to let the people know the situation and policies in the court, so that people in the world will naturally know how to choose.

County Magistrate Tian pondered for a while, and although he felt a little dissatisfied, he still nodded and agreed.

After sending him away, Li Ling returned to his study with a serious expression and took out the northern border defense map he brought from Bazhou. It seemed that it took him half a day. He said it to Tian Bingwen with ease, but in fact he was extremely nervous and heavy. The Guirong people were able to fight straight to the city of Xuanzhou, which meant that this time the situation was extremely fierce and rapid, and this must be a tough battle.

The more important point is that he didn't know whether this was just a robbery like in the past, or whether it was the first step for the mighty prairie hero to march into the Central Plains when the Guirong tribes were about to be unified.

"I hope I'm too concerned, and I hope the war will end soon..." In the end, Li Ling only said these two sentences gently.

...

At this time, the situation in Luoyang, the capital was even more tense than Li Ling thought.

Even though today is the annual Lantern Festival, there is no festive atmosphere in the capital. There are nearly half fewer pedestrians on the street than before, and some are also in a hurry and look gloomy.

As for the officials in Beijing, they had already come out of the holiday state. No, it should be said that they had forgotten the New Year's Day this time, because this incident in northern Xinjiang had already broken out as early as the end of the twelfth lunar month.

On the 20th day of the twelfth lunar month last year, thousands of cavalrymen of Guirong suddenly appeared on the northern border. After two military forts were drawn, the beacon fire was transmitted back to the rear. The Xuanzhou garrison immediately sent a thousand elite troops under his command to check the retreat of the enemy.

At that time, the governor of Xuanzhou, Shen Jun, thought that this was a small group of enemy invasions to the grass-grabbing valley. As a result, this elite army of thousands collided with a number of five thousand Guirong people head-on. In less than half a day, almost all the troops were wiped out. Only a few people fled back in a hurry, bringing back the bad news that three military forts were lost one after another.

Three days later, the enemy army went deep into the northern border, swept a hundred miles, removed all the more than ten fortresses around Xuanzhou, and then met Shen Jun's troops who led the troops to meet the enemy. As a result, this time, Shen Jun, who brought 8,000 elite troops to meet the enemy, suddenly found that the number of invading enemies was 30,000.

After only two days of attack, he retreated in a hurry and entered Xuanzhou City before he stabilized slightly. But immediately, the enemy had already set up his troops and directly besieged Xuanzhou, which was quite a bit like defeating this strong city, one of the ten military towns in the northern border of Vietnam.

This is what Li Ling saw from the newspaper, but it is already outdated. Because just after the new year began, even greater bad news had been sent back to the capital. After five days of bloody battle, Xuanzhou City was broken, and Shen Jun led only 800 personal soldiers to break out, missing. The people of Guirong used this city as a support and continued to expand outward. At the same time, more troops came from the north. As of today's urgent report, the Guirong army entered the northern border this time was as many as 80,000, which was almost twice as many as the previous invasion of Dayue. Moreover, most of them were elite cavalrymen!

When the news came, all the courts were in the capital, and no matter the emperor, the court officials, they were scared by the military force of Gui Rong. More importantly, no one could believe that these 80,000 Gui Rong people were actually marched together, and seemed to have the only commander. This made the strength of Gui Rong, which was originally not weak in combat, have a qualitative improvement.
Chapter completed!