In the east of Wuzhou Chuan, near Wuzhou Sai, Li Li stood in front of the huge grotto and looked at the tall Buddha statues in the cave. The memories of that lifetime were evoked.

He has been here, which is considered a revisiting place. Of course, it was the "modern" more than a thousand years later.

Here, it was called Yungang Grottoes in later generations and was a very famous tourist attraction in Datong. Therefore, Heng'an City, outside the eastern end of Wuzhou Sichuan, should be the predecessor of Datong City in later generations.

It is also Pingcheng, the capital of the Tuoba Wei Kingdom.

Li Li looked carefully at the Buddha statue in the grotto in front of him, thinking about history.

When the State of Wei in Tuoba clan still regarded Pingcheng as its capital, in the early years of Heping (Heping was the year name), a monk gained the trust of the Emperor of Wei and dug up mountains and stone walls in Wuzhou west of Pingcheng, and opened five grottoes.

Each cave has a Buddha statue, the height is seventy feet (seven feet) and the slightly lower one is sixty feet (six feet).

The huge project was to dig mountains and open caves to build Buddha statues. This huge project lasted for nearly sixty years and stopped in the fifth year of Zhengguang.

At this time, the capital of Wei had already moved south to Luoyang, and the royal family changed their surnames from Tuoba to Yuan.

In the fifth year of Zhengguang, rebellions broke out in six military towns on the northern border of Wei State, which then shook the entire dynasty, which was the rebellion of the Six Towns.

This chaos changed the destiny of the Yuan and Wei dynasties. The rise of the military group would be kicked into a shaky dynasty controlled by corrupt nobles and gentry.

Pingcheng has long since become deserted due to the migration of the capital.

Now, more than a hundred years have passed since the start of the grotto. Li Li looked at the magnificent statues of the Buddha in front of him and the quietly flowing Wuzhou Sichuan River nearby, thinking about the surrounding situation.

Wuzhou River is a river valley and an ancient road, which is a channel to communicate north and south.

The tribes on the grassland went south in large numbers, and after crossing Yinshan, they had to enter Hedong. One of the main transit locations was Pingcheng.

If you want to go from the southern foot of Yinshan to Pingcheng, you have to enter Canghe Xing (Shenhe Xing), go to Wuzhou River, leave Wuzhou Pass, and arrive at Pingcheng.

This road is a must-pass road for the grassland tribe to move south. There is also the "Baideng Road" north of Pingcheng (Heng'an), which leads directly to the grassland.

Therefore, it is not enough to just "block" Wuzhou River. Heng'an itself also needs to strengthen its defense. The location of this city is too important. For Dai and Shuo areas, it is an important northern gateway.

Dai and Shuo area are the northern gateway to Taiyuan, Bingzhou.

In the early Han Dynasty, the Han and the Hungarians fought, and the "Baideng Siege" where Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, was surrounded, took place in Baideng Mountain in the northeast of Pingcheng.

At that time, the Huns army arrived at Pingcheng along Wuzhou Sichuan and surrounded the rampant Han army in Baideng Mountain.

After decades, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, in the second year of Yuanguang, the Han army intended to lead the Huns into the ambush circle and annihilate them. The Huns' army left Wuzhou Pass and went to Mayi.

When Cao Wei arrived, the Xianbei Tuoba clan moved to Shengle, which was on the southern foot of Yinshan Mountain, gradually developed.

In the Jin Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the Tuoba clan regarded Shengle as the capital and established the Dai country.

The Dai State of Tuoba was destroyed by Fu Jian's Qin State. However, after the Battle of Jin and Qin Feishui, Fu Jian's Qin State collapsed and the Tuoba State quickly restored the country, but the country's name was not "Dai", but "Wei".

Tuoba Wei Kingdom quickly grew stronger, conquering the grassland tribes, and going south, competing with Murong Yan Kingdom for the Dai and Shuo areas, and the two sides confronted each other, and Wuzhou and Sichuan were the only way for troops to advance.

In the end, Wei defeated Yan and moved the capital from Shengle to Pingcheng. Wuzhou Sichuan became a major road connecting the new and old capitals. There were many merchants and travelers, which were very lively.

It can be seen from this that this passage is very important to the grassland forces and the Central Plains forces, and Pingcheng is the key portal.

The grassland forces have mastered Pingcheng, which is equivalent to mastering the gates to the south and can form strategic advantages over Hedong and even Hebei.

From Pingcheng to the south, break through Yanmen Pass, you can go directly to Jinyang, Bingzhou and even sweep across Hedong;

From Pingcheng to the east or southeast, through the various passes of Taihang Mountain, you can enter the Hebei region.

The Wei State of Tuoba clan took Pingcheng as its base and gradually expanded its territory to the south and incorporated Hebei into its rule.

If the Central Plains forces control Pingcheng, they can attack north and retreat, and they can block the grassland forces from the door to protect Hedong and Hebei.

Li Li himself can figure out the importance of the location of Pingcheng (Heng'an).

He knew that once the Chu army launched an attack on Hedong, it would inevitably "detonate" Chu, Qi and Zhou dynasties, and the Turks were very likely to take advantage of the situation, which was always a trouble.

Youyan Daoxingtai, and the governor of Youzhou Wang Lin advised him that to destroy Qi, he must first take Heng'an (Pingcheng).

In this way, an important passage for the Turkic army to interfere with the Chu army in pacifying Hedong could be cut off.

Since we want to win Heng'an, it is better to deal with the Turks by the way, so that the other party will not dare to go south for the next few years.

The best time to deal with the Turks is in winter, because many Turkic tribes will arrive at the southern foot of Yinshan Mountain to spend the winter and gather in Shengle area.

Once Qi State seeks help and obtains the knowledge that the Chu army attacks Qi, the opponent will go south along Wuzhou Sichuan and take advantage of the situation to rob.

But it happened to crash into the trap of the Chu army, and then the Chu army attacked with all its might and gave the opponent a heavy blow.

Li Li felt that this strategic concept was good. The Qi army no longer had the ability to attack strategically. As long as the Chu army moves fast enough, it will destroy the Turkic army before the Qi army reacts, and a new situation will be opened.

Although there is a great risk of a decisive battle with the Turks in advance, he is confident of winning.

That's why I made a series of preparations, which took more than half a year.

This time, he was in charge of the imperial army. It was not because he had just listened to the deductions of military academy students in Kaifeng that he had just started to make a decision.

Now, the Chu army took Heng'an and immediately began to build a large-scale fortress, stationed heavy troops, supported Wuzhou Pass, and guarded Wuzhou Sichuan.

The garrison will be equipped with artillery to protect the blockade and protect the city, so that it can calmly "spend" the nomadic army heading south without reinforcements for the time being.

The entire Wuzhou River can be regarded as the terrain of the narrow river valley, but relatively speaking, it is still a little wider and is not completely impossible to cross on both sides.

In the era of cold weapons, Wuzhousai wanted to completely block the enemy, and he had to build a long wall to block the entire river valley to form a huge fortress.

If not, it would not be able to stop a large number of enemies attacking along the valley.

However, with artillery, it's different.

The defenders use artillery to defend against Wuzhou Pass. Unless there is an internal problem, Wuzhou Pass will never fall.

He looked at the Buddha statue in front of him and did not move. In the distance behind him, there were traffic on the road. A large number of captured Turkic tribes, as well as many cattle, sheep and horses walked east along the road.

The soldiers who escorted the captives were all excited. They pursued the enemy for more than ten days, and were extremely tired and extremely happy.

Since the Battle of Sangqian City, the government army chased the Turks and fought fiercely. In the past ten days, there have been countless battles of all sizes and big things. After the war was achieved and the capture was captured, who would be unhappy?

But there were not only soldiers who were happy, but several riders galloped northward to the south of the valley.

They walked through the eastward team, waded through the shallow Wuzhou Sichuan River, rushed to the grottoes, and informed the emperor of good news.

On the south side of the river valley, opposite the Buddha statue of the grottoes, a coal mine vein was found.

Li Li was not surprised by this "good news". Since he had been to Yungang Grottoes again, he had come to Yungang Grottoes, and of course he knew that there was a very special tourist attraction opposite the grottoes (south):

Jinhua Palace National Mine Park.

This mining park was once the Jinhuagong coal mine, and the mining scale was very large, so Li Li determined that there must be a large amount of coal on the hillside opposite the cave.

The facts prove this:

When the Wei State was digging the grottoes in Wuzhouchuan, they sent people to dig the caves in the south, but found that there was charcoal here.

Due to geological reasons, the grottoes are concentrated in the north of Wuzhou Sichuan, and there are still green mountains in the south. The grotto sites left behind and the mine caves dug by locals to obtain carbonite have been "convenient" for further exploration of the ore veins.

Therefore, when Li Li first formulated a strategy, he decided to lead exploration and mining personnel to attack. After taking Heng'an, he immediately explored the opposite side of the cave, determined the coal veins, and then started the mine.

Even if it is only shallow mining, the expected amount of mining is good. With sufficient coal, it means that with sufficient fuel, Datong and Heng'an can survive the severe winters comfortably.

The coal tar refining process developed from Xuzhou has matured, which will give the garrison sufficient tinder oil and send sincere "fire blessings" to the nomadic army who came to Heng'an along the Sichuan River in Wuzhou.

Li Li looked up at the distance, looking at the undulating hillside in the south, and looking at this strange but indeed "has been" place, he was deeply moved.

The Central Plains have not yet been unified, so the external offensive can only come to an end.
Chapter completed!