"Uncle Twelve, Brother Six, Brother Twelve... Please tell me, tell me quickly. Third Brother really promised to let me become the king of Wu, and take possession of Liangjiang, Lianghuai, The land of Zhejiang, Guangxi, and Fujian?”
On the Yuejiang Tower in the impregnable Jinling City, sometimes it was King Wu of the Great Song Dynasty, and sometimes it was Zhao Huan, an official of the Great Song Dynasty. They were asking with trembling voices the newly arrived kings of Yan, Zhao Yu, Jing, Zhao Qi, and Shen, Zhao Zhi. .
It is already the winter of the eighth year of Hongwu, and it has been several months since Zhao Qi and Zhao Zhi went north. In the past few months, Zhao Huan had no appetite for anything and had no interest in sleeping with anyone. All his thoughts were devoted to two things.
One is to recruit soldiers. The biggest difference between this recruitment and previous recruitments is that there are geographical restrictions. People from some place who are young, strong, and endure hardships can earn this life-saving money.
This time, only the strong men on Guangnan East Road and Guangnan West Road were able to earn money for their hard work, not even Hu Jianren.
The reason for this is that Zhao Huan recruited troops in the name of conquering Vietnam. In the history of the Song Dynasty, troops were sent to attack Vietnam twice. One was during the Taiping and Xingguo reign of Song Taizong, and the other war occurred during the Xining reign of Song Shenzong.
In these two wars, the Song army suffered heavy losses. Although they penetrated deep into the enemy's territory, they returned defeated in the end. Especially in the second time, the Vietnamese Li Dynasty provoked a war in the name of crusade against Wang Anshi's reform, conquered the three states of Qin, Lian, and Yong in the Song Dynasty, and massacred more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians of the Song Dynasty. In the end, the Song Dynasty used the Western Army to counterattack Vietnam. However, due to the obstruction of the Furiang River and the epidemic among the army, they had to stop the army and make peace, and cut off Shunzhou...
Therefore, when Zhao Huan proposed to recruit 100,000 troops in the name of "conquering Vietnam", the capitulation faction in the DPRK (surrendered to Zhao Kai) and treacherous officials pointed out that Vietnam had a hot climate and was a land of miasma, and asked Zhao Huan to withdraw his order.
However, Zhao Huan's determination was unshakable, and Li Gang took the opportunity to propose recruiting troops in Guangdong and Guangxi.
So Zhao Huan got off his donkey and ordered Su Wang Shu, who was the right capital of the Privy Council to accept the decree and declare and pacify Annan, to be the left capital of the Privy Council to accept the decree and declare and pacify Annan, and take charge of recruiting troops from Guangdong and Guangxi.
This "right capital Chengzhi" was changed to "left capital Chengzhi" was not changed casually. The Privy Council of the Southern Song Dynasty was now divided into left and right houses, with the left house in charge of the army and the right house in charge of the navy. All officials of the Privy Council who are deputy ministers and above have the word "left" or the word "right" in front of their official positions, which indicates that they serve as officials in the left court or the right court.
And Zhao Shu has been an official in the navy for a long time, and of course he is the right officer of the Privy Council. Now taking the post of Zuodu Chengzhi is equivalent to transferring from the navy to the army...it is equivalent to lifting the military power of the navy!
But at the same time, Zhao Huan also gave Zhao Shu the task of recruiting 100,000 army troops, allowing him to get involved in the army's military power... This was tantamount to having a foot in the army controlled by civilian officials.
Moreover, Zhao Shu had a special status and his close relationship with Zhao Kai, which made the civil service group dare not do anything to him. They could only let him recruit troops in Guangdong and Guangxi...but it was just recruiting troops.
Because Zhao Shu did not have a team to train troops, but Zhao Huan and Zhao Chen did have 3,000 young soldiers - these young men had been trained by Zhao Chen for several years and were ready for use. Most of them were born in poverty, and now they all regard Zhao Huan as their adopted father and Zhao Chen as their eldest brother.
If they take over the new army recruited by Zhao Shu, then Zhao Huan, Zhao Chen and his son will have reliable force!
Whether you are resisting or running away, you can rely on something...
As for the other thing, they were paying careful attention to every move in the north, sending a large number of agents to Shandong Road and Jinghu North Road to inquire about news, while craning their necks to wait for Zhao Qi and Zhao Zhi to return.
I have been waiting from autumn to winter, and the Chinese New Year is almost here. I am finally waiting for the visitors from the north and the longed-for good news.
The good news arrived at Jinling City first... When Zhao Yu, Zhao Qi, and Zhao Zhi were crossing the Huaihe River, Zhao Huan rushed 600 miles away from the Huaihe River and sent the news to Jinling City on the same day.
The news is too good to be true!
Zhao Kai actually discovered his conscience!
After hearing the news, Zhao Huan was so happy that he didn't sleep for two nights, but then he started to worry again... This thing was too good, and even Zhao Huan couldn't believe it.
So when Zhao Yu, Zhao Qi, and Zhao Zhi arrived today, he no longer even thought about going to court, and left Chongzheng directly with Li Gang, He Su, Geng Nanzhong, Zhang Bangchang, Wu Min, and the eldest son Zhao Chen He went to the Yuejiang Tower on the edge of the Yangtze River to meet three kings who had come from afar.
After the meeting, there was no nonsense and he directly asked about the peace talks.
Zhao Ming, Zhao Qi, and Zhao Zhi, who had come from all walks of life, all nodded together when they heard the words, but did not show much expression of joy. It was obvious that they still had something to say!
"What's going on?" Zhao Huan suddenly became nervous, "What other conditions does Third Brother have?"
Zhao Qi and Zhao Zhi didn't know what to say, so they both looked at the senior Zhao Yu.
Zhao Yu sighed: "The officials want... to ask the king to escort the late emperor's Zi Palace, Empress Dowager Zheng, and a group of concubines, princes, princesses and others to the north."
Zhao Huan was stunned for a moment, "Where are you going north?"
"Of course I'm going to Luoyang..."
Zhao Huan's face suddenly stiffened, "After you go there, can you still go back to Jiangnan?"
"This..." Zhao Yu didn't know how to answer.
Zhao Qi said: "I should be able to come back, but..."
"But what?"
"Third brother said..." Zhao Zhi said, "You'd better take the initiative to extend your kindness!"
"What do you mean?" Zhao Huan's face changed drastically, "He, he wants me to die, no, he wants me to die?"
Zhao Huan misunderstood. He thought Zhao Kai wanted to kill him and then show favor to his sons.
"Brother, that's not what third brother means," Zhao Qi explained quickly, "third brother hopes that you will divide the family while you are still alive, so as not to..."
He didn't dare to say anything anymore, because he noticed that Zhao Chen's eyes were so cold that they almost froze.
"Uncle Six," Zhao Chen said word by word, "my father will not go north!"
Zhao Zhi sighed: "Your Majesty, if your father doesn't go north, your third uncle will come south to welcome the late emperor Zi Palace!"
Zhao Chen had a tough mouth and was better than his father. He snorted coldly and said, "Then, the widow and my father are waiting for him in Jinling City!"
Zhao Zhi still wanted to speak, but Zhao Qi who was standing next to him hurriedly came out to smooth things over and said: "Brother Emperor, Crown Prince, my younger brother, twelfth brother, and twelfth uncle are all exhausted today. Why don't we go and take a breath first? We can talk about anything tomorrow." Is it possible?"
He said this because he was afraid that Zhao Zhi would offend Zhao Chen and risk his life... Zhao Huan's eldest son was not raised according to the standards of ordinary Song Dynasty princes.
After Zhao Chen arrived in Jinling, he began to be trained by Zhao Huan with Zhao Kai as his role model.
Although he hated Zhao Kai for stealing his throne, he hoped that his son could be like Zhao Kai. In private, he often told people: Having a son should be like Zhao Sanlang!
For this reason, he may be better than Zhao Gou in history. He finally knew that being a good king, especially a good king in troubled times, was inseparable from military ability!
And military ability...first of all is courage!
What did Zhao Kai have back then? The fledgling prince may not have very high martial arts skills, so why can he win consecutive battles in Hebei and Hedong?
Zhao Kai relies on one word: courage!
And if you want to be "brave", you need to have some martial arts skills, and it is best to know a little bit about the art of war.
Art masters are so bold!
Back then, Zhao Kai was brave because he had some martial arts skills.
So although Zhao Huan didn't like Zhao Kai, he worked very hard to train his son to be the person he hated the most.
However, Zhao Gou in history did not use Yue Fei or Jin Wushu as a model to train his adopted son Zhao Yu...
And thanks to Zhao Huan's hard work, Zhao Chen really looks a bit like Zhao Kai! Although their faces are not very similar, their bodies are somewhat similar. They can both be said to be tall and tall, and they are also capable of both literary, military and military skills. His martial arts are even better than when Zhao Kai left Kaifeng Mansion! He also learned military strategy well and knew everything he should know.
The most similar thing between him and Zhao Kai was that he was able to make friends with a group of warriors from a humble family. Zhao Kai had good brothers like Han Shizhong, Zhang Jun, Li Xiaozhong, and Yue Fei, while Zhao Chen got involved with the best of the 3,000 young soldiers.
With the support of these young warriors, Zhao Chen has grown into a force that Zhao Huan can rely on.
...
Upstairs in Yuejiang, Zhao Ma, Zhao Qi and Zhao Zhi were all gone. Only Zhao Huan, Zhao Chen, Li Gang, He Su, Geng Nanzhong, Zhang Bangchang, Wu Min and others were left to discuss countermeasures.
"Father, let's fight!" Zhao Chen was just as reckless as Zhao Kai back then. He shouted for fight as soon as he came up. "If we don't make up our mind to fight, our family's world will be surrendered...and let's let it go." People take things without fighting!”
"Can you win the fight?" Zhao Huan looked at Li Gang and asked.
Li Gang was speechless for a moment.
Zhao Kai's political skills are getting better and better!
What they used this time was a clever trick of subduing the enemy without fighting... and they took advantage of it. Now Zhao Huan is controlled by others everywhere. Moreover, the people's hearts are floating and the morale of the army is scattered. Even if they reluctantly fight, they have little chance of winning. But if there is no fight, it won't take long for Zhao Kai to use threats and coaxing to dig out Zhao Huan's power in the southeast.
Do we have to use the best of the thirty-six strategies in the end?
Zhao Huan was also a little disappointed when he saw that Li Gang, who had always taken the lead in fighting, stopped talking. He Su, who succeeded Zhao Mingcheng as Zuo Privy Council, noticed the strong fighting spirit on Zhao Chen's face and quickly suggested: "In the official family, whether it is war or peace, we must have enough troops on hand. I suggest that the prince go south. Guangdong and Guangxi, preside over the training of the new armies of Guangdong and Guangxi, and at the same time take over the military and political power of Guangdong and Guangxi."
Zhao Chen did not want to leave Jinling at this time, but Zhao Huan immediately made a decision and said to Zhao Chen: "Your Majesty, take your people and set off as soon as possible... don't celebrate the New Year in Jinling City."
"Father..." Zhao Chen was still a little reluctant, "I want to stay with you!"
Zhao Huan waved his hand, "Don't worry...Father will not fall into the hands of your third uncle!"
