Prefect Dong had a rather strange look on his face, and said, "In order to discuss your merits and rewards, all the officials in the Golden Palace started arguing at 7:30 in the morning court today, and it didn't end until an hour ago. During this period, even Li Daxueshi didn't get any news, let alone us."
"A whole day?" Fang Yun asked.
Prefect Dong smiled helplessly and said, "Don't mention it. The people on both sides were arguing fiercely. The Queen Mother asked them to leave the court to eat first, but they refused. The guards couldn't stop them when they entered the palace. The Queen Mother couldn't just watch all the officials starve, so the Queen Mother, the King, and the ministers had lunch in the Golden Throne Hall, arguing as they ate."
Fang Yun blinked and smiled, "That scene must be very unique. I dare not imagine it."
"Yes, it is really hard to imagine. In my memory, there were indeed quarrels in the court that lasted a whole day, but at noon, everyone went to the side hall to eat. It is unprecedented for the ministers to quarrel while eating in the Golden Throne Hall. This matter will definitely be reported to the emperor and become a laughing stock among the ten countries." said Magistrate Dong.
Fang Yun laughed secretly and asked, "Is it another dispute between the Minister of Literature and the Minister of the Left?"
"Of course. The Minister of Culture wanted to confer you the hereditary title of Marquis of Xizhou, so that you could recruit a powerful private army and protect yourself. The Minister of the Left refused to give in, the Queen Mother remained silent, and as for the King, he ate and slept, and even peed on the throne once."
"How was it finally resolved?"
"In the evening, the Queen Mother suddenly became furious. She first blamed the Minister of Literature, then the Minister of the Left, scolding all the officials. Then she said that she supported the Minister of the Left and would not give you the fifth rank of state earl, but only the sixth rank of county earl. Just when the Minister of the Left thought they had won, the Queen Mother changed the subject and said that you had made great contributions. She gave you the sixteen words of "pillar of the country, model of students, model of scholars, and role model of literati", and then asked the Minister of Rites to draft the imperial edict. Finally, she carried the king away and said she was changing his diaper."
Fang Yun tried hard to imagine the scene and squeezed out a sentence: "Isn't the king three years old? Why does he still need diapers?"
"Three years old. But you are right. Maybe the dragon's body is not in good condition."
Fang Yun discovered that Prefect Dong mentioned the monarch as if he were talking to a superior official.
"The Minister of Rites is a good man, I will advise you on this. But the imperial edict has a national destiny, it is a matter of great importance, it needs to be approved by the cabinet, and the left prime minister is the head of the cabinet, how come he agreed so quickly?"
"The Left Prime Minister is well versed in political tactics. Since the Queen Mother has said so, he must compromise. If he does not compromise this time, he will run the risk of the Queen Mother turning the table over. The key is that the wealthy families of Jing State are all helping you. Today, the situation is in your hands." said Prefect Dong.
Fang Yun nodded.
"Besides that, I'm afraid it's because the left prime minister has already completed his layout in the army, so there's no need to turn against each other at this time. But I didn't expect that the empress dowager would use the holy temple to deliver the imperial edict and official seal. I'm afraid it's to reassure you." said Magistrate Dong.
Fang Yun knew that the Holy Temple could deliver small items, but it would consume a huge amount of talent, which was generally not worth the cost, and even the Holy Academy was rarely willing to do so.
"If I have the chance in the future, I must thank the Queen Mother in person." Fang Yun said.
"It's good that you have this intention. The Queen Mother has been very kind to you. The title is only a basic reward. After some time, rewards from the capital will appear, and this time there will probably be cultural treasures. Okay. I'm leaving." said Prefect Dong.
"Why are you in such a hurry? Sit for a while and wait until the rain stops." Fang Yun politely tried to persuade him to stay.
"No, Commander Zhang has left. Commander Lu is about to take office and Yuhai City is not peaceful." Prefect Dong said goodbye and left.
Fang Chuan sent Magistrate Dong away and went back to his room to study.
Nunu was also tired from playing, so she went into Fang Yun's study. She shook herself gently, and all the water on her body flew away. Then she lay on the ground, squinting her eyes, and listened to Fang Yun reciting the sage scriptures.
Although Fang Yun was preparing for the provincial examination, he no longer carried out intensive practice because he had already mastered the meaning of classics and policy essays. He just wrote one essay on each every day and asked Mr. Pang next door to correct his mistakes.
In order to complete the talent show, Fang Yun did not read any other books at this moment and only read the art of war.
When I get tired of reading, I practice a paragraph of characters, and then close my eyes and think about how to complete the talent performance.
Fang Yun attached great importance to this "concealing the truth from the world", not only because this strategy was very useful, but also because this was the first time that his talent was demonstrated. If it failed, it would inevitably leave a psychological shadow, and the effectiveness of the "Thirty-Six Strategies" would be greatly reduced.
If one can complete all thirty-six demonstrations of the thirty-six strategies, it not only means that one can master these strategies, but also means that the entire military book is integrated into the holy way of wisdom, and its power can be continuously enhanced.
Fang Yun decided to study and think for three days before entering the talent show.
The next day, Fang Yun studied the art of war as usual, but starting from the morning, countless people sent him gifts, including almost all the important people in Yuhai City.
The smallest gift might be a small item worth one or two taels of silver, while the largest gift might be a hundred taels of silver or a gift worth several hundred taels of silver.
If it was just a family born and raised in Yuhai City, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Yuhai City is the commercial center of Jing State. There are shops opened by major families of Jing State everywhere. Merchants or shops of other families also send reasonable orders to them.
There were so many people giving gifts that the street in front of Fang Yun's house was blocked, and everyone had to slowly clear the way.
There were thousands of gifts of varying sizes, and because there were so many, they had to be placed in the yard, creating four small hills in the yard.
The doorman kept records of these people. Favors need to be reciprocated. Once the person who gave the gift had any happy event, the Fang family would definitely return the gift.
Fang Yun felt a headache looking at the heavy traffic at the door. If he went to deal with it himself, a whole day would not be enough, so he simply stayed in the room and read.
At night, Yang Yuhuan and others estimated the total value of the gifts, which was more than 30,000 taels of silver. A famous family could not earn so much in a year, and this family could not use it at all. The porcelain alone could fill an entire study.
Fang Yun didn't care and continued to study military tactics and think about how to complete the talent show.
After three days, Fang Yun felt the time was ripe, so he spread out a new piece of white paper and started writing slowly.
When Fang Yun was writing the last period of the plan to conceal the truth from the world, his eyes went dark again.
Fang Yun opened his eyes, and just like the first time he performed martial arts, he became a seriously injured general who could not even use his talents. He had to come up with a plan to deceive the barbarians and make them think that he had a strong army and sufficient food, so that the barbarians would not dare to pursue him and finally retreat calmly.
Since it was his second time entering the camp, Fang Yun was very familiar with the entire military camp, but he did not let his guard down. He asked the soldiers again and got the same test: to use a deception strategy to conceal the fact that the Jing army had no food and grass and low morale.
After Fang Yun learned that nothing had changed, he immediately gave orders in great detail, almost guiding the officers step by step.
The first step is to make the barbarians think that Jing’s army has sufficient food and grass.
The barbarian eagle monster will fly in the sky and can see part of the situation in Fang Yun’s military camp, and Jing Jun’s military camp will immediately send out eagle monsters to fight.
There were ten large granaries in the barracks, and outside the granaries there were ox carts for transporting grain. Many soldiers were seen entering the granaries.
The granary was extremely empty, with only very little grain in it. However, after the soldiers entered the granary, they used tools to dig the soil underneath the granary, put the soil into cloth bags, and finally sprinkled some grain on top of the bags, making people think that the entire bag was full of grain.
The first group of people carried out the fake grain one after another, and occasionally they would deliberately leak some grain on the ground, but no one cared.
The enemy eagle demon in the sky saw everything.
Those people transported the fake grain to the ox cart and returned to the granary.
Unlike the last time when the bags were filled with mud, this time two people were carrying the bags out, and the bags were full of grain.
The two men were carrying grain for the second time, and at first they were no different from before. But after a few steps, their hands suddenly slipped, and a whole bag of millet suddenly fell, and the yellow millet was scattered all over the ground.
The two men cleaned up the place casually, leaving rice grains all over the floor, and left with half a bag of millet, seemingly not caring about the loss at all.
During the transportation process, the grain escort officer used chips to calculate the amount of grain, and soon accumulated a very high number, enough to feed the army for five days.
All kinds of deliberate waste and carelessness that occurred during the grain transportation process showed that there was enough military rations in the barracks.
During this process, Jing Jun's eagle monster flew out from time to time to prevent the other eagle monster from investigating, just like usual.
When all the food was transported, an enemy eagle monster in the sky returned to the barbarian camp.
Fang Yun smiled slightly. This method originated from the "singing and measuring sand" of the famous general Tan Daoji. However, the process of singing and measuring sand was done at night and to deceive the enemy spies. Fang Yun's "using soil instead of rice" had to be done in the daytime and in front of the eagle demon, which was more difficult.
During the process of falsifying the food supply, Fang Yun also picked out some stronger soldiers, asked them to eat more food in the tents, and then put on heavy armor and walked around in the barracks, responsible for maintaining order.
Some soldiers gathered in some places for training, sweating all over.
The other soldiers also received orders to try their best to appear strong.
In this way, in the eyes of the enemy eagle monsters, the army of Jing Kingdom not only had food and grass, but also had very high morale. They were not in a hurry to retreat and were not afraid of the barbarians at all.
The plan of hiding the truth from the world may seem simple, but in fact, it requires consideration of all details. Any problem with any detail may be discovered by the local rebel scholars. Especially in the battlefield between humans and monsters, this strategy itself is not difficult, but the execution process and precautions are very difficult.
So, during the confrontation between Fang Yun and the soldiers, Jing Jun packed up and left the barracks, burning everything before leaving, not caring at all, but in fact he was covering up the traces of digging sand and soil.
The team's retreat was very ordinary, neither fast nor slow, so the barbarians sent a small team to follow.
Near noon, the scout team and the eagle demon in the sky finally became impatient and retreated.
Fang Yun breathed a sigh of relief. The whole process could make a strong army pretend to be a weak one, or a weak army pretend to be a strong one. As long as he could deceive the opponent and achieve his desired goal, it would be a successful plan.
Fang Yun originally thought that the martial arts performance would end after the retreat, but nothing changed. He was carried forward by his personal soldiers.
"The Talent Performance hasn't been completed yet? That doesn't make sense. Could it be that this strategy is too unique, so we have to continue testing it? Or is the Talent Performance much more difficult than we thought?"
Fang Yun was puzzled, but there was nothing he could do at this time, so he had to follow the team into the car.
Soon it was noon and Fang Yun was in even greater trouble because food was running low and the soldiers were afraid of mutiny.
. (To be continued..)
ps: Three updates.