After a month or so of back-and-forth tug-of-war, the Northern Liao finally retreated. By this time, the Northern Liao could only contact Hengzhou by sending out death squads to cross the mountains and bypass the heavy blockade of the Dongping army. The Hengzhou garrison repeatedly launched attacks, but they were blocked at the exit of Hengzhou by Tan Xiaopei, who personally led the Imperial Guards. They did not advance an inch. Instead, Tan Xiaopei seized the opportunity to break into Hengzhou, greatly advancing Tan Xiaopei's timetable. At the same time, the two-winged advance of the Zhenbei Pass garrison and the Xueqi Army and the breakthrough of the Tianxuan Army in the central route also made considerable progress. However, both sides were on the verge of collapse.

The Northern Liao, which originally wanted to capture Zhenbei Pass, was preempted by Dongping, and Hengzhou was also taken, which was a great humiliation. However, as the battle line extended inward, the geographical advantages of the Northern Liao army gradually became apparent, and the Dongping army had to invest a large number of troops in local governance. Otherwise, the resolute Northern Liao people might revolt at any time, harass the rear of Dongping, attack small units, and attack supply convoys. Dongping did want to adopt a gentle strategy for the occupied areas of Northern Liao, but no matter how gentle, it had to be under the condition of ensuring stable rule. The Tianxuan Army and the Zhenbei Pass garrison had to spread out over a vast area, and due to the unique geographical location of Hengzhou, the defense of Hengzhou and Zhenbei Pass was actually relatively independent. The garrison of Zhenbei Pass could not invest a large number of troops in the rule of the occupied areas, otherwise, it might really be attacked by the Northern Liao by surprise. At that time, Dongping, without Zhenbei Pass, would not even be able to withdraw the military force deployed in Hengzhou. The Xueqi Army and the Imperial Guards could not help much in this regard. They all came with Tan Xiaopei, and their mission was in Danyang. Considering these factors, after Tan Xiaopei had won a series of victories and encountered a series of troubles that began to appear one after another, he began to shrink his forces.

Although the Northern Liao wanted to retake Hengzhou, they did not have enough troops now. Now they could only watch Dongping trying to dig a road directly into Hengzhou from Dongping but were unable to interfere. When the Tianxuan Army moved to the Heng'an Three Forts and began to continuously arm these three forts guarding the entrance of Hengzhou with Dongping's military construction technology and heavy equipment, the high-level officials of the Northern Liao army knew that as time went by, it would become more and more impossible to retake Hengzhou. On the other hand, with the end of the battle in Zhenzhou and the continuous reorganization and establishment of the local garrison battalion and other troops in Zhenzhou, Yunzhou was constantly withdrawing troops from Zhenzhou. This time, Yunzhou's quick in and quick out, and the tactics of quickly capturing Zhenzhou amazed the world, but it also added a bit of worry to the Northern Liao, which bordered Yunzhou and did not have any checkpoints to control the ground. What would happen if the Yunzhou army launched a lightning strike against them? The Northern Liao State Lord had strictly ordered the Western Route Army to pay close attention to Yunzhou's movements, and Gao Senqi had to take the Flying Tiger Battalion back to the Western Line of Northern Liao to prevent the Yunzhou army, which had a strong continuous combat capability, and the Zhenbei Pass from attacking in two routes. In that way, the operation that was destroyed by Dongping's surprise attack might really evolve into a war of dynasties to the death. To be honest, although the Northern Liao people were resolute, they were still quite unsure of themselves when facing Dongping, especially after Ye Tao's airship team appeared on the battlefield. They were increasingly unable to understand the extent to which Dongping's military technology had developed. The equipment was not as good as others, the morale was not as good as others, the training was not as good as others, and even the generals were not as good as others. As for the Northern Liao's always weak grain reserve foundation, there was no need to mention it.

When everyone was facing all kinds of difficulties, everyone stopped the pace of war tacitly. Everyone stopped at the edge of the actual control line. After that, naturally, the scouts and small troops of the two countries endlessly harassed and attacked each other, turning the entire actual control line into a "national war zone" twice, but large-scale military operations stopped. Whether it was Yunzhou, Zhenzhou, or Hengzhou, they were all too lacking in local officials. Yunzhou was fine, there were still a large number of outstanding children from local aristocratic families who could be recruited, but Zhenzhou was in trouble, it was sparsely populated, and many villages were conscripted or relocated, and they were all poor people who had not studied. They could only be appointed as local officials by the governor of Zhenzhou. Lu Dan was almost exhausted just for this matter. Fortunately, Huang Xuping had many students, and many people, for the sake of Huang Xuping, followed Lu Dan to Zhenzhou, and under the unified rule of Yunzhou, did some pioneering work.

Hengzhou, on the other hand, presented another kind of scenery. After Xue Yuan took over as the governor of Hengzhou, he did not even lift the control of Hengzhou, but continued to adopt a relatively high-pressure strategy. He conscripted a lot of laborers from the local area to build roads, and also stipulated the planting structure of the fields of local wealthy merchants, and even directly negotiated with the lower-level people, teaching them more advanced agricultural knowledge, and even directly distributed the rations during the famine to everyone's home. These were all behaviors that greatly offended the local aristocratic families, but Xue Yuan could not care so much. If he did not do this, he would not be able to manage the entire Hengzhou while rectifying military affairs on the front line, even if Qiu Haohui shared a lot of work for him. However, this kind of thing that left aside the aristocratic families, directly faced the common people, and did not require the other party to be grateful, but did indeed improve the lives of the people, was quickly understood and supported by many local people. Many people began to secretly discuss the difference between this governor of Hengzhou from Dongping and the previous governors of Northern Liao. Everyone said that Xue Yuan was fierce but kind-hearted, and was still very good; and that the general stationed in Daning was even a strange character, and also had a gorgeous armor...

Now, in fact, it was Qiu Haohui who was commanding the troops on the front line to actively engage in friction with the Northern Liao army, and constantly adjusting various combat plans to prevent himself from suffering losses. Qiu Haohui was not very good at this kind of work. After all, compared to those veterans who had been in the army for decades, he was far inferior to Xue Yuan in the details of this kind of thing. However, Qiu Haohui at this time also played his characteristics as a general who was good at learning. In any aspect, as long as he suffered a loss once, he would definitely not make the same mistake again. When the situation was transmitted to Yunzhou, Ye Tao wanted to send him a sentence: You can't use the same move twice on a Saint Seiya...

Compared to the overwhelmed Zhenzhou and Hengzhou, Yunzhou initially solved the problem of the shortage of officials because it accepted a group of former "Xiuyuan Disciples" as officials. Compared to Zhenzhou, which had only followed Yunzhou's strategy in the past few years, and Hengzhou, which followed Dongping's inherent traditional system, the governance of Yunzhou was quite cumbersome. The powers of various institutions were very clear, and the cross-cooperation between each other was also very good. However, this cumbersome governance required a larger bureaucratic system to carry out.

In terms of military affairs, Yunzhou was even more abundant. Although after the battle of Zhenzhou, the number of casualties was quite considerable, and it would take quite some time for the replenished recruits to reach the qualified standard, Yunzhou had this time at the moment. From the beginning of the war to the defeat of Jiang Xujing and the capture of Zhenzhou, in less than two months, the only reaction from Xiling was to urgently transfer troops from Zhongzhou to supplement Taizhou and form a new defense line. When Xiling gathered a large army to prepare to counterattack Zhenzhou, it happened to coincide with Chunnan's force, successively conquering strong cities, and almost reaching the foot of Dananguan. Xiling had no choice but to let the troops preparing to go north go south. The Dongping army was still constantly making various moves at Huanshan Pass, making it necessary to arrange military forces in the middle position on this axis from south to north. Otherwise, if there were any problems here at Huanshan Pass, even if Xiling's national strength was strong, it would have to be disgraced.

Xiling's tight south and loose north, and the default of Yunzhou's occupation of Zhenzhou, was also helpless. Chunnan had been bullied by Xiling for many years, and had been cut off piece by piece from its territory by Xiling, to the point that when Tong Bingwen failed to capture Dongping in the past, he borrowed a road from Chunnan to withdraw his troops back to the country, which was a great shame for Chunnan. In the war against Chunnan, Xiling did not seem to only point its military force at the other side's strategic strongholds and troops, without involving other things, as in the war against Dongping. The Xiling army was afraid that Dongping would take the same strategy to retaliate, but they did not have this concern for Chunnan. The feud between the two countries was so deep.

This time, Chen Xujing not only had hundreds of thousands of elite soldiers who had been preparing for a long time, sufficient supplies, and high morale, but also had the strong containment of its ally, Dongping. When Yunzhou sent troops, Chen Xujing was overjoyed for a while. He did not expect that Yunzhou would not move if it did not move, but it would be astonishing when it moved, and it would defeat the Zhenbei Military Division in such a short time. Although Yunzhou subsequently reduced the pressure on Xiling, Chen Xujing's army did fight several beautiful battles in the two months in which Xiling was worried about both ends and could not take care of them completely.

However, the southern front and Zhenzhou's side relied on the powerful mobility of the cavalry and the terrifying speed of all the troops in Yunzhou being cavalry to achieve beautiful tactics, which were all results filled with lives. The generals under Chen Xujing had long been fired up, and after successively pulling out towns, there were cases of looting of the cities, and Chen Xujing did not care. After decades of occupation and rule, Xiling had completely turned these places into its own territory. Those remnants who were loyal to Chunnan had died of old age, and those who had been educated by their families that "we are Chunnan people" and were looking forward to the Chunnan army's counterattack, but instead watched Chunnan retreat steadily and the national border getting farther and farther away from them, many people hated the Chunnan army more than those Xiling people who had migrated over because of disappointment and anger. Not only did they not help, but they often tipped off the enemy. It was indeed Chunnan's fault that caused this tragic situation, but Chen Xujing could not incorporate this detailed situation into consideration in the first time. What he had to do was attack and attack again.

When Chen Xujing learned that Yunzhou had already captured Zhenzhou, and had gradually returned to defense except for a part of the troops guarding against Xiling, he had fully utilized the two months or so to capture a series of strategic key points such as Fujiang, Zening, Wayaoji, Liyang, and Ciyang. As long as he captured the southern town of Xiling, Aiyang, then Dananguan would be exposed in front of Chen Xujing. He did have to pile up a victory in capturing Dananguan with human lives, but even this kind of sacrifice had long been prepared in the hearts of everyone in Chunnan from top to bottom. The alias of Dananguan as "Da Nan Guan" (Great Difficulty Pass) was not for nothing.