On the first day of Li Yanqing's tenure, he fully demonstrated his strong style. He ordered that all the hundred personal soldiers he brought were converted into Kaifeng Prefecture soldiers. Each of them changed into Kaifeng Prefecture soldiers' uniforms, issued a waist card, cross-body long sword, and holding a two-color water and fire stick in his hand. Each of them was still riding a war horse.

Naturally, all the hundreds of soldiers were called by Li Yanqing himself, and Shaoyin was not allowed to interfere. This was actually a legal cloak on his personal soldiers, and he could perform official duties on the streets in a noble manner.

Although the young male minister Zhao Hui was very dissatisfied with Li Yanqing's domineering style, he was caught by Li Yanqing's ineffective disaster relief and had to dare not speak out. However, other Kaifeng Prefecture officials were secretly worried about Li Yanqing that Kaifeng Prefecture always worked with his tail in the capital. He was as strong as Li Yanqing and might cause big trouble in the capital with a huge amount of powerful people.

Li Yanqing still did his own thing. He divided the hundred personal soldiers into five teams, and asked two constables as guides to start patrolling public security in the city. Li Yanqing himself led twenty soldiers to patrol along the city wall.

Of course, Li Yanqing was not patrolling public security. He inspected the city defense situation in the capital in the name of patrol. The city walls were taller and stronger than Taiyuan. The city walls were four zhang high and three zhang wide. They were made of glutinous rice mortar with big stones. The big stones were tightly tucked into them, so they could not even be inserted into them. Although the center of the city wall was filled with yellow sand and soil, the huge stone wall was at least five to eight feet thick. Even if this kind of city wall was tied together, it could not be blown up even if it was tied together with ten thunders. This was the luck of the capital and the courage and vision of those who repaired the city walls in history.

The moat outside is not wide, only two feet away. There is no suspension bridge in the city gate, but a real wooden bridge, which has been around for at least decades. Of course, once it freezes in winter, the moat and suspension bridge are meaningless. The moat can be ignored, but the moat is full of tall weeping willows on both sides of the moat. After a hundred years, the weeping willows are very thick and huge. Several weeping willows are even close to the top of the city, which made Li Yanqing frown.

It can be seen that Zhao Huan had made some preparations, such as building several large warehouses near the city gate, which were filled with military supplies and guards on the top of the city. However, these guards were obviously not imperial guards. They were generally wearing old leather armor, Fanyang hats, and a spear. Many soldiers were equipped with bows and arrows. However, Li Yanqing did not see the shadow of the divine arm crossbow, which made Li Yanqing shake his head secretly.

It was not a lucky chance that he could defend Taiyuan, but made a lot of meticulous and arduous preparations. In order to demolish the houses close to the city wall, he was scolded by countless Taiyuan people at the back of the backbone. But it was these various details that made the Jin soldiers ultimately impeccable. But like the current preparations for war in the capital, the Jin soldiers could kill the city with one or two attacks.

At this time, several soldiers guarding the city came over, and Li Yanqing stopped them, "I am the new Kaifeng Yin, I want to ask you some things."

Several soldiers did not know Li Yanqing. When they heard that the young official was actually Kaifeng Yin, they hurried forward to salute.

"Where are soldiers from you? It seems that you are not from the capital?"

"Report to the great official, we are the Chenzhou Xiangjun and were transferred to the capital last month."

As expected, they were all other soldiers. Li Yanqing looked down on the village soldiers, and the imperial guards were also corrupt. The key is that these soldiers were not from the capital, so they did not have the will to fight to protect the city. Once the war started, they might abandon the city and flee back to their hometown.

"Then have you trained to defend the city?" Li Yanqing asked again.

Several soldiers looked at each other and shook their heads, "We only train bows and arrows, not guarding the city."

"Have you ever fought a war?"

Several soldiers still shook their heads. Not to mention fighting against the Jin soldiers, they would not have the share of their own attack on Liangshan and suppressing Fang La.

Li Yanqing asked a few more questions, but basically he was not a satisfactory answer, so he had to let the soldiers leave.

"Previous Order Li!"

At this moment, Li Yanqing suddenly heard someone calling him behind him. When he turned around, he saw that Li Gang was rushing over, and a group of subordinates were also following behind Li Gang, probably also coming to inspect the city wall.

Li Yanqing stopped. After a moment, Li Gang hurried forward and said happily: "Does Li Fu Yin also come to check the city defense?"

Li Yanqing nodded, "I promised His Highness the Crown Prince, so I will naturally not go back on my word."

"Now I am fully responsible for the city defense and combat preparations. I welcome the valuable opinions from the Supreme Court Li."

Li Yanqing shook his head, "I speak so badly. I will offend people, so it's better not to say it!"

Li Gang was stunned and hurriedly said, "I am a civil servant and have no experience in defending the city. Please tell me the prefecture just by saying it out loud. If there are any shortcomings, I will definitely humbly correct it."

"Mr. Li really wants to hear the truth?"

"certainly!"

"Okay!" Li Yanqing walked to the city wall and pointed to the weeping willows outside the city. "Why don't these weeping willows be sawed off? Keep them to help the Jin soldiers attack the city?"

Li Gang looked embarrassed and said for a while: "These weeping willows are called founding willows. They were planted by Taizu when he founded the country. No one dared to cut them down, at least they cannot be cut down now."

Li Yanqing looked at him for a moment and nodded, "Okay! Now I won't mention the weeping willows, so what's going on with these defenders? I just asked them that they have neither training nor any war experience, so how can they face the fierce battle? When the Jin soldiers and cavalry come, how many people can hold on?"

Li Gang smiled bitterly, "The biggest difficulty for the prince now is that he has no military power and no power to appoint and remove senior officials. These wing troops have been repeatedly fought for it. After the official agreed, the wing troops transferred from the counties and prefectures around the capital, there were a total of 30,000 people. Moreover, the commanding generals of these wing troops are all served by the imperial guards, and only the orders related to the prince's defense of the city are not implemented. The other orders are not implemented. These thirty thousand wing troops are actually in the hands of the official."

"Then what combat preparations have you made now?"

"We have only made a lot of material preparations, such as building armor, preparing firearms, etc. We have built more than 1,000 pieces of thunder alone, and mobilized financial resources from all parties. The reserve silver transferred from silver mines in the south alone reached 10 million taels, three million stones of grain were transferred, and five million pieces of Jianghuai cloth had been suppressed. The price of silver has also dropped to 1 to 4,000 ci, and the highest was one tael to 8,000 ci."

Li Yanqing walked to the city wall with his hands behind his back. The situation was even more serious than he was worried. He thought that the prince would do more things after he was in charge of the country, but now it seems that the Military Conference Hall still does nothing in combat readiness.

Of course, it cannot be blamed for the Crown Prince Zhao Huan. He was severely constrained by Emperor Zhao Ji. Zhao Ji was the cancer of the defense of the capital and the culprit of the Jingkang shame in history.

At this time, Li Gang slowly walked up and sighed: "When he tried his best to persuade the government to abdicate, I knew that his refusal to abdicate would have serious consequences at present. The money we raised from various places was originally used as military expenses, but at least half of it was moved into the inner treasury by Wang Fu to continue to build the Yanfu Palace."

"What?"

Li Yanqing couldn't believe his ears. It was incredible that Zhao Ji had to build Yanfu Palace again.

"Don't he know that the Jin soldiers will come again?" Li Yanqing asked in shock.

"The officials believe that Song Jin has signed an agreement on the truce and withdrawal of troops, and will receive tribute from heavy coins every year. They should not come again within a few years. This is the idea that Wang Fu, Cai Jing and others have instilled in his ears every day. And since last month, Wang Fu began to instigate him to recruit the Flower Stone Gang to build the Hangzhou Palace, which will be led by Wang Jin, the clan's brother. Alas! How can the country be defeated in such a arrogant and extravagant way?"

Li Yanqing pondered for a moment and said, "No matter what, the city defense must be promoted. I will take a look in the next two days. I will write a report to His Royal Highness the Prince. You should try to follow my suggestions and calculate as much as you can. Even if you can't do it well, you must prepare it in advance. For example, if you cut trees outside the city, you will find all the strong men who cut trees outside the city first, and the axe will be sharpened, and the path will be paved. At that time, with an order, you can cut down all the trees within an hour and drag them into the city to be used as rolling wood in the city. Does Mr. Li understand what I mean?"

Li Gang nodded, "I understand what Li Fuyin means."

...........

Just as Li Yanqing gave Li Gang some advice, in the official room of Wang Fu, the Kaifeng Prefecture Young Master Zhao Hui was also reporting to Wang Fu about Li Yanqing's arrogance today.

"I was so arrogant. I actually stuffed all my personal soldiers into Kaifeng Prefecture. He said that he was responsible for the expenses. Do you think that the world of Song Dynasty belongs to him? Li Yanqing? He can buy the country's important weapon with money? My husband, this person does not abide by the rules and threatens to drive me away on the day of taking office. He must severely punish his behavior and cannot be misleading his nature."

Wang Fu walked a few steps behind his hands, and asked coldly, "What other extraordinary things have he done?"

"There is also the matter of providing relief to refugees. I said that Wang Xianggong was considering the relief plan comprehensively. Kaifeng Prefecture should obey the court and not act without authorization. But he pointed at my nose and cursed, saying that he was my boss, and ordered the household guards to handle the relief immediately, and did not take Wang Xianggong seriously at all."

Wang Fu was furious, "Has he really done this?"

"He did this and ordered all counties to start providing relief to refugees by noon tomorrow."

“So what if you don’t provide relief?”

"He didn't say it."
Chapter completed!