On the twenty-sixth day of the first lunar month, the third day after the Lumen army arrived in Zhucheng, Marquis Lumen issued a military order requiring all troops to rest for five days, train their weapons, and organize their equipment. Five days later, he would send a large army to attack the surrounding small barbarian tribes to demonstrate the power of Chu.
The official document room on the left side of the main hall of the Marshal's Mansion was extremely busy, with a large number of scholars and clerks coming in and out, many of them holding various documents in their hands.
When the marshal wanted to issue orders to various armies and regions, he would draft a document, then hand it over to his staff and then to the official document office. The clerk in the official document office would go to the printing house and print out enough documents.
The imperial court would send letters to various places every day, and the contents of the letters would arrive at the official document room as soon as possible, and the official document room would be responsible for printing them and sending them to wherever they were needed.
If the armies want to communicate with each other, they also need to go through the official document room.
In the eyes of the Official Document Room, there are no secrets in the army, so the Official Document Room is an important place in the army. Once the secrets are leaked, the entire army will suffer a devastating disaster.
The official document room is also the hardest and most tiring place. There are basically only two types of people: one type is constantly writing documents, and the other type is constantly running errands distributing documents.
The busiest task in the official document room was to write, organize or distribute letters home for the soldiers.
With an army of more than 400,000, even if each person only wrote two letters to their families each year, the official document room would receive more than 2,000 letters every day, and more than half of them were written by clerks in the official document room.
Some clerks in the official document room would go to various armies every day to write letters home for some people. After all, literate soldiers might not be able to write letters home.
After Fang Yun joined the official document room, he was very relaxed in the first few days. He held the official seal and returned to the room every once in a while to sign or stamp the seal. The rest of the time he walked around the official document room, observing the clerks at work. Occasionally, he followed some clerks to other military camps to understand all the procedures of the official document room.
At first, the people in the official document office found it novel, but as they were too busy with official duties, they soon ignored the Marquis of Zhujiang who liked to wander around.
"Pearl River Idlers!"
The nickname Wei Changxian gave to Fang Yun quickly spread throughout the camp.
Fang Yun didn't take it seriously. The reason he was so leisurely was that he realized he was nervous in the past few days because he was anxious to be promoted to Grand Secretary. Fortunately, he discovered it early and started to pay attention to the combination of work and rest, otherwise his promotion to Grand Secretary would have been delayed.
Everything is excessive or insufficient.
Fang Yun was very free, but the entire army was making intensive preparations.
On the first day of February, a Hanlin general of the Lumen Army led an army of 30,000 to leave Zhucheng and began to search for the barbarian tribes.
On the fifth day of February, the army returned victoriously, having beheaded two thousand men, while our army suffered less than five hundred casualties. It was a rare great victory, and Marquis Lu Men personally welcomed the victorious soldiers.
On the sixth day of February, General Zuo of the Zhujiang Army led 40,000 troops out of the city, but returned in disgrace the next day, with more than 4,000 soldiers killed and more than 10,000 wounded.
Lumen Hou was furious. He asked and found out that the army was ambushed by the barbarians and had to fight hard to withdraw. ← Baidu search →
After Fang Yun received the news, he shook his head slightly. This General Zuo obviously underestimated the enemy, otherwise he would not have been ambushed. Fortunately, the human race and the barbarian race in the literary world abide by the basic principle of equality. Unless in special times, the attacking party will never send out too powerful generals. For example, the strongest enemy in this ambush is only the Barbarian Marquis.
If the Barbarian King had participated in the ambush, these 40,000-strong army would have been wiped out long ago.
While doing his job well, Fang Yun was also learning about the battle between humans and monsters.
Compared with ordinary cold weapon battles, the battles between humans and monsters are very different.
In an ordinary cold weapon war, if the two sides engage in a head-on battle, if one side's casualties exceed one-third, its morale is likely to collapse, and the other side's advantage will become extremely great. The side with collapsed morale will flee, and the other side will easily pursue and kill it.
But in the battle between humans and monsters, there are very few routs. They either retreat successfully or fight to the death.
In a head-on battle, there is only one case in a hundred where humans or monsters would flee.
In ordinary cold weapon battles, head-on combat will last for a certain period of time, but in head-on battles between humans and monsters, there will be two extremes. Either it will last for a long time, or the outcome will be decided quickly. After all, both sides possess terrible power, and the intensity of the battle far exceeds that of ordinary cold weapon battles.
Precisely because of these differences, Fang Yun often abandons some of the ancient Chinese military strategies, and at the same time, he also deepens his research on military strategies applicable to the human race.
On the tenth day of February, Marquis Lumen personally led an army of 200,000 to sweep across all the large barbarian tribes south of Zhucheng, and returned safely to Zhucheng before the barbarians counterattacked.
This battle was a great victory, and Chu received a large number of congratulatory letters from all sides, even countries that were friendly with Chu sent congratulatory letters.
After the news of this battle spread across the country, the families of the Zhujiang Army and the Lumen Army began to mail letters. Within a few days, the main task of the official document room was changed to sorting out letters from various places and distributing them to various armies and camps.
Fang Yun once again tried to ask for a fight, but was rejected by Lu Menhou. When he visited again, he was blocked outside and had to try from the backyard of the Marshal's Mansion, but ultimately returned empty-handed.
On that day, Fang Yun wrote a poem titled "Not Worth Visiting the Garden", which became popular in Zhucheng.
We should pity the imprints of our clogs on the moss.
I knocked on the wooden door for a long time but it didn't open.
The spring scenery in the garden cannot be contained.
A red apricot blossomed outside the wall.
The first two lines of this poem are mediocre. It uses humor to say that the owner is afraid that the teeth marks of his wooden clogs will damage the moss, so he never opens the door for himself.
However, the last two sentences not only caused discussions in Zhucheng, but also became the hottest topic of the day in the literary circle.
Regarding the understanding of the last two sentences, people quickly split into two camps. One camp praised Zhang Longxiang's state of mind, saying that even though he was suppressed in Zhucheng, he still had great ambitions, like apricot flowers in the garden, he could still stand out.
Another group believes that this poem is a satire on Lu Menhou. The poet is saying that no matter how bad Lu Menhou is, he will be able to break through the barriers and stand out like a red apricot.
After this poem appeared on the literary list, the scholars of Shengyuan Continent did not understand it too much. They simply thought that this poem was extremely excellent, with an uplifting spirit amidst its gloom.
Others compare the famous line from Li Wenying's "Early Plum" "In the deep snow in the village ahead, a branch bloomed last night" with "The garden is full of spring colors and cannot be contained, a red apricot branch blooms out of the wall."
The appearance of this poem set off a trend of spring literary gatherings in various parts of the human race.
On the second day, Zong Ganyu, the head of the Zong family, personally commented on the poem, "In spring, red apricots bloom, and one branch dominates the world."
However, Lei Tingzhen, a great scholar of the Lei family, called "Not Worth Visiting the Garden" "Flowers bloomed last night, the first one of the New Year."
The high praise from the two great scholars immediately sparked heated discussions in Shengyuan Continent. Many scholars in Shengyuan Continent were dissatisfied and hoped that Fang Yun would come out and give the arrogant Zhang Longxiang a small "lesson".
Where there is controversy, there is topic, and where there is topic, there is literary fame. Zhang Longxiang's literary fame began to rise rapidly in the Shengyuan Continent.
No matter how strong the voices of opposition were, "A red apricot comes out of the wall" soon became a household phrase.
While the outside world was in chaos, Fang Yun continued to handle official documents in the document room. Near noon, Wei Changxian and his men broke in.
.(To be continued.)