In the ten days of early autumn, the ground is yellow.
After the autumn of the second year of Xiangfu, an astonishing news quickly spread across the country. It was rumored that Jiang Si of Western Chu was about to ascend the throne and proclaim himself emperor. The female emperor is the first queen in the history of the Central Plains Dynasty.
Corresponding to this, all the major generals of Western Chu who are leading the army outside, except Xu Yunxia who guards the Jiangbei pass, and Pei Sui who is in charge of confronting Wu Chongxuan's army in southern Xinjiang, together with Cao Changqing and Xie Xizhen, almost all the civil and military leaders of Western Chu All the members gathered in the capital one after another.
In contrast, the Liyang court decreed that Wu Chongxuan be conferred the title of Great General to Conquer the South, and at the same time promoted Hengjiang General Song Li to be the General of Zhennan, concurrently served as one of the Deputy Jiedu Envoys of Guangling Dao, and was ordered to return to Guangling Dao to assist Guangling King Zhao Yi to lead the army. As for the two young officials who accompanied Song Li quietly and temporarily stood up to Guan Zhenglang of the Ministry of Industry, they were even more inconspicuous in the changing situation. In just two years, Yuan Guo, who served as the Minister of the Ministry of Rites and the Ministry of Household Affairs for two times, this old Zhang Lu's proud student who is now jokingly called the Minister of Fire Fighting, was not like his colleague Han Lin, who was placed high hopes by the young emperor and sent to other places to serve The great officials in the borderlands did not relegate Wang Xionggui to the war-torn Guangling Road as expected by the officials in Tai'an City. After meeting Lu Shengxiang, the soldiers split into two groups, Yuan Guo went to see Wu Chongxuan, while Song Li led the two minor officials from the seventh rank of the Ministry of Industry to Zhao Yi's feudal prince's mansion familiarly.
As Yuan Guo, the emperor's envoy, is getting closer, the atmosphere on the western front of Guangling, where the battle is not going well, seems a little unusual. It stands to reason that Wu Chongxuan, as the object of imperial conferment, should mobilize his troops, not to mention bringing a few generals from southern Xinjiang with him. Going out of the city for ten miles to meet each other, the worst thing is that people should start to prepare for Yuan Guo, not to mention whether Yuan Guo has a chance to make a comeback in the temple and return to the center, even with the reputation that Yuan Guo has accumulated in the officialdom of Tai'an City for many years, Wu Chongxuan, who was about to formally set foot in Liyang's officialdom, could not be neglected, but in the end, it was Jing'an King Zhao Xun who brought Qingzhou Navy General Wei Dong to welcome Yuan Guo. Wu Chongxuan only attended the dinner held on a naval ship. Tang He and Li Chunyu, the two direct line generals, did not show up. They were accompanied only by a strange young man surnamed Jiang. Before the banquet started, Yuan Guo announced the decree with a blank face. The veteran Wu Chongxuan, who was wearing an outdated iron armor, also listened to the decree with a blank face. At that time, the clank of nail leaves all over his body was especially ear-piercing. This made the subsequent dinner, full of delicacies, delicacies, wines and delicacies, tasteless, extremely bland, without any festiveness at all.
In the night, on the river some distance away from the Huanglonglou ship, a Qingzhou battleship that was in charge of patrolling the river tonight was still. A young man in casual clothes lay quietly on the railing, with a sneer on his lips.
On the left hand side of the young man stood Wang Xianzhi's second younger brother Gong Banque, third disciple Lin Ya, and a tall woman with a veiled hat on her head. The four people on the right are all in their prime of life, and without exception, they are full of murderous aura. They are the generals of the Southern Xinjiang Dao Infantry Army Zhang Dingyuan, Gu Ying, Yuanzhou General Ye Xiufeng, and Hezhou General Liang Yue! All the generals of the direct descendants that Zhao Bing, king of Yanchi, could afford had arrived at this time.
Among them, Wang Tongshan was once the well-deserved number one general under the command of King Yanchi, but he entered the northern border of southern Xinjiang a few years ago. This time Wu Chongxuan was "recruited" by the court, and Wang Tongshan, who was originally used to check and balance Wu Chongxuan, showed some signs of being ready to move.
Zhao Zhu didn't look up, but smiled and said, "Sister Lin, that guy is Jiang Fuding from your Emperor Wu City, right?"
Lin Ya, the grand master of boxing, nodded with a complicated expression.
Zhao Zhu rubbed his chin, "I was wondering how this guy could help Wu Chongxuan connect with Tai'an City. This matchmaker is not something that just an ordinary person can do."
Lin Ya hesitated to speak.
Zhao Zhu turned his head to look at the female martial arts master who had been rated by Rouge, and said with a playful smile: "Sister Lin, don't worry, even if Wu Chongxuan didn't have Jiang Fuding as a matchmaker, he would still flirt with Tai'an City. It's just a matter of time. Don't look at the monk. Buddha face, I will definitely not compete with someone surnamed Jiang. Haha, to be honest, our old General Wu is really not happy this time. The promised Marquis and General, Zhengnan General was appointed, but he was not named. Hou, let alone being named the first king of a dynasty with a different surname in the Xiangfu years, how is this different from being the number one general in our southern Xinjiang? One hundred thousand elite troops in the northern part of southern Xinjiang, just toss a general who is one of the four expeditions, It's bleeding. His Majesty the Emperor's move this time is really not very generous."
The tall and slender woman with a mysterious identity said in a cold voice: "It's not that the imperial court is reluctant to grant Wu Chongxuan a Marquis. The reason why people have lost their trust is nothing more than the fact that the war in Guangling Dao is not going well. If you start to seal the generals now, when the dust settles, you should reward them again." What? I believe the man from Yuan University who came from the capital will meet with Wu Chongxuan privately afterward, and he will clarify what he said."
Zhao Zhu hummed, "If you are not in charge of the family, you don't know the price of firewood, rice, oil and salt. This is the reason. Maybe if I sit on the dragon chair, I will do the same thing. First, I will lure you, Wu Chongxuan, into the thief's boat, and then I will talk about other things."
Zhang Dingyuan reminded softly: "His Royal Highness, Tang He and Li Chunyu are here by boat."
Zhao Zhu joked: "Fortunately, Wang Tongshan is not here for the time being, otherwise we may be directly picked by a halberd."
Gu Ying, who is as handsome as a woman, said sadly: "Not to mention that lunatic Wang Tongshan, Tanghe Li Chunyu dare to come to meet His Royal Highness? Do we really dare not kill these two white-eyed wolves?"
Zhao Zhu shook his head and said: "I really don't dare, now I am a serious official of the imperial court, not to mention that if we really kill people, it is just to let the fisherman in Xishu take advantage of the fisherman's profit, and the relatives and enemies will be happy." I'm not willing to do business."
Yiye Xiaozhou didn't get too close to this master-gathered battleship. After stopping, Tang He and Li Chunyu made a deep bow, and Xiaozhou turned around and left.
Liang Yue, the fierce general of Nanjiang, snorted heavily, and grasped the broken rail of the boat with five fingers.
Zhao Zhu said indifferently: "The female university is out of the pavilion, the bird is out of the nest, let them go."
The atmosphere is dignified, only the sound of the river is heard.
The water flows downhill and people walk uphill. Zhao Zhu suddenly turned his head and asked, "Miss Zhang, that Yuan Guo is your father's student. If you want to meet up, I can help arrange it."
The tall slender woman said indifferently: "No need."
Zhao Zhu subconsciously stretched out his hand to touch the dilapidated money bag on his waist, and said with a smile, "If you have a knife, you can't kill all the heartless dogs."
After that, Zhao Zhu, who didn't say a word, looked to the northwest in a daze, showing a worried expression. Although Southern Xinjiang has its own excellent espionage system, it has never reached out to Beiliang for so many years, and Beiliang Fushuifang also tacitly refused to go to Southern Xinjiang to place chess pieces. This kind of respect is not only from Beiliang There are 300,000 iron cavalry in Liang and 200,000 strong troops in Nanjiang. Not only is Xu Xiao and Zhao Bing two powerful vassals who are afraid of each other, but it is also a kind of sympathy between heroes. Heroes in the world are the only ones who are equal. But in Zhao Zhu's generation, how could he, the prince of Yanchi, have an ordinary friendship with Xu Fengnian, king of Xinliang
Before letting Longgong Lin Hongyuan get mixed into the muddy water that covered Huishan's purple clothes, why didn't you tell Xu Fengnian that it would be a big deal for you to simply give up the meaning of Beiliang, after all, there is still the retreat route of Southern Xinjiang for you.
The farthest information Zhao Zhu obtained was fragmentary news from Huainan Road. Now Cai Nan and Han Lin are serving as Jiedu envoys and economic envoys respectively. Everything has been tightly sealed, and the Liyang court report did not mention anything about the situation in Beiliang, so Zhao Zhu only knew that Wang Sui led the Eastern Front Jingqi to plunder Jibei 20 days ago, and then rushed to Hezhou. Refers to the Helan Mountains in the east of Youzhou in Beiliang. It seems that the two wars in Liuzhou and Liangzhou are not conducive to Beiliang. According to the deduction of Zhang Dingyuan, Gu Ying, Ye Xiufeng and others, Beiliang's chances of winning are extremely small. A mobile cavalry army led to the opening of the west gate of Liangzhou, and Yang Yuanzan's army broke through Xiaguang City in Hulukou, and joined Wang Sui's cavalry army in Youzhou. Die or die. As for Liangzhou's mid-line loss, let's not mention anything.
Zhao Zhu whispered softly: "It doesn't matter if you lose, when the time comes, you and I, brothers, will fight side by side."
Zhao Zhu stood up straight, stretched out one palm, and clenched his fist tightly.
…
Different from the blunt atmosphere of the banquet boat on the west line of Guangling, in the mansion of Prince Guangling, Zhao Yi and his son Zhao Biao personally held a banquet for Song Li, his confidant in the past. It also appeared for the first time, when Song Li mentioned that Mr. Wang's youngest son, Wang Yuanran, had joined the Ministry of Rites of the capital as a doctor of ceremonial officials, and specially congratulated Mr. Wang on this, Wang Xionggui, who could not hide his gloom, suddenly burst into smiles. During the banquet, the two young officials who were temporarily watching the affairs of the Ministry of Industry were ignored by everyone after Song Li personally blocked the drink for one of the young people surnamed Lu. Zhang Zhupo, the villainous guest of the palace, and Song Li, who returned home in brocade clothes, did not deal with each other in the past. One was the chief counselor of Chunxuelou in Guangling Road, and the other was a romantic and handsome man who was regarded by Zhao Yi as a lucky general. But tonight, Zhang Zhupo searched everywhere. The reason is that Mr. Vice-Jiedushi punished himself by drinking seven or eight glasses of wine until his whiskers were sticky. His eldest son Zhao Piao looked gloomy at this, and Zhao Yi kept smiling all the time.
On the night after the banquet ended, two officials from the Ministry of Industry, under the banner of inspecting the Guangling River Canal, gathered for a drink in the other courtyard of the Wangfu. Among them, the man surnamed Lu was blind.
The young man surnamed Sun, who was very drunk at the banquet, was not in the slightest state of drunkenness at this moment. He leaned lazily on a graceful chair made of large red sandalwood, poured a glass of wine for the blind young man opposite him, and said with a smile "Song Li has no good intentions, and deliberately blocked the wine for you, obviously to remind Zhao Yi, and tell the Guangling Palace that you, a small official of the Ministry of Industry, are actually more special than me, Sun Yin."
Lu Xu, a blind man who entered and left the capital, was sitting upright, far less imposing than Sun Yin, a well-known maniac in Beijing, and said softly: "General Zhennan is after all an old man from Chunxuelou, and the kindness of a drop of water must be repaid by the spring. The move is not too much, why bother without Song Li treating him with courtesy, it is not easy for Zhang Zhupo to talk to Master Sun smoothly."
Sun Yin laughed loudly and said: "Zhao Yi is in such a bleak situation, what else can he do besides breaking the jar? Open one eye and close one eye, and let the good birds on the bamboo slope choose a tree to live in. At any rate, he can give him a better life." The eldest son Zhao Piao saved some incense and fire, so that the court has two generals, Song Li and Lu Shengxiang, and Zhang Zhupo as a civil servant, Zhao Bing will be able to be a prince of pleasure in the future, or wait until the world is peaceful , the power of the generals is declining, without Zhang Zhupo's protection in the officialdom, a random governor of Guangling Road can easily kill Zhao Piao."
Lu Xu smiled and said: "This is the general trend, but are there still few tragic disasters caused by the emperor's willful actions in the history books?"
Sun Yin curled his lips with disdain.
Lu Xu sighed, "Zhao Yi and his like, no matter how good his reputation is, or how bad he is compared to other feudal lords, he still deserves to be respected by those of us who have risen up."
Sun Yin frowned, but still gradually restrained his madness, and joked: "Master Lu, you are not a few years older than me, but you are old-fashioned."
Lu Xu remained silent.
Sun Yin lowered his voice, "I'm curious, how did you convince His Majesty that you were able to make up your mind to send Lu Baijie, the Ministry of War, to Guangling Dao as a military envoy? For this reason, you have completely annoyed the entire Jiangnan Taoist group. I am old and immortal, but I hope that Tangxi Sword Immortal can stay away from right and wrong for a while. It is better to be hidden by the court in Liangliao like Xu Gong, and delay his official career for two or three years, than to be a leader now. So many people It is said that you have attached yourself to the Liaodong Peng family in the Northland in Tai'an City, and that's why you have tripped up the four clans of Jiangnan Dao..."
Lu Xu raised his head, closed his eyes, and "looked" at Sun Yin.
Sun Yin smiled awkwardly, obviously a little embarrassed, it was really meaningless to play tricks in front of a smart man like Lu Xu.
Sun Yin was unkind, but Lu Xu cut to the chase and said, "Qi Yanglong and Tan Tanweng didn't want Lu Baijie to come to Guangling Road. On the one hand, they cherished his talent. On the other hand, they couldn't appeal to them. Families are in-laws. If we take history as a guide, the so-called return of the world is, in the final analysis, nothing more than the return of scholars and the aspiration of the people, and it is nothing more than the approval of scholars. The Lu family in Qingzhou entered Beiliang, which is already a lesson for the past. At this moment, when Zifuliang was discussing with Wudang Buddhism, Lu Baijie should not have come to Guangling Road, which is adjacent to Jiangnan Road. There are even more near-term worries. Master Sun asked me how I persuaded His Majesty, it was very simple, just one sentence, when the matter is at hand, you don’t need to worry about near-term worries, and you don’t need to worry about far-away ones.”
Sun Yin grinned for a while, "This is a bit overbearing."
Lu Xu raised his head and drank the wine in his glass, and laughed at himself, "Of course, before leaving Beijing, I had a long talk with the king all night, and for this one sentence, I said thousands of sentences."
Lu Xu put down his wine glass, "Compared to fighting for power in the battlefield, everyone is going to die. I, Lu Xu, are just talking about it, it's useless."
Sun Yin shook his head and smiled and said, "You are a scholar? Zhang Zhupo, Song Li, Zhao Yi, Zhao Biao and his son, Lu Baijie, Yuan Guo, your old master Zhao Xun, Wu Chongxuan, Lu Shengxiang, plus the entire Guangling Road... so A big chessboard, you and me, two little workers from the Ministry of Industry, but you can fight here and there, how can it be useless?"
Lu Xu lowered his head and "looked" at the table, just like sitting in Yongzi Alley with a chessboard in front of him.
Lu Xu said to himself: "In chess, there are winners and losers, and there are profits and losses in chess. But this kind of advice for the emperor and the world, your fingertips are full of blood."