After listening to Shi Hao's words, Zhao Min's expression changed and he sighed heavily.
"Teacher, do you still want me to surrender? The battle has not yet been decided, and the Song Dynasty has not yet been helpless, so you want me to surrender? I can't do this kind of thing!"
Shi Hao sighed.
"Your Majesty, Liu Qi was defeated, the royal power was defeated, and the Imperial Army was also defeated. The three troops in the Jianghuai area were defeated by the Ming army. The Ming army marched straight in. It is only more than three hundred miles away from Lin'an. If we continue, how can we fight this battle? ?”
"The royal power has not yet been confirmed to have failed! Maybe there are still troops that can cut off the Ming army's food routes! As long as we withstand the Ming army's offensive in Huzhou, it will be enough to turn the tide of the war and let the Ming army reap the consequences!"
Zhao Hao waved his hand: "In short, I will never admit defeat in this battle, and I will never lose it! This is the first battle since I became emperor. Although it is not what I want to happen, at this point, I have no choice. We must fight!”
Zhao Xin's face was very resolute, and his words were full of non-negotiable determination.
Shi Hao wanted to continue persuading him, but Zhao Min refused to accept it.
"Teacher, I have made it very clear. It seems to be my fate to face this kind of thing just after I ascend the throne, but I never believe that I am destined to accomplish nothing and can only be an incompetent emperor who surrenders just after I ascend the throne! I never believe it!
If God has destined me to be an incompetent emperor who accomplishes nothing, then let the Ming army attack Lin'an, humiliate me wantonly, and even kill me, but it is absolutely impossible for me to surrender or bend my knees! I am a descendant of Taizu, and the descendants of Taizu will never bend the knee! "
Zhao Xun's will to resist was very resolute and he would never surrender.
As a descendant of Zhao Kuangyin, he decided to use practical actions to show the world the difference between him and the descendants of Zhao Guangyi.
Seeing that persuasion was useless, Shi Hao had no choice but to leave and think about how to deal with the subsequent affairs after the Song Dynasty was defeated.
The Ming Dynasty will definitely make the Song Dynasty very uncomfortable if the lion opens its mouth, but how to use diplomatic means to win diplomatic victory for the Song Dynasty is a skill.
Weak country diplomacy does not necessarily have no chance of victory, this is for sure.
Although it is only a relative victory.
Since Shi Hao's persuasion was meaningless, the other ministers who hoped to persuade Zhao Hao to surrender naturally gave up and stopped trying to persuade Zhao Hao to give up the battle.
But the gathering of more and more bad news made the court uneasy, and also made Lin'an City uneasy.
News came from Jiaxing Prefecture that the army and navy sent troops to Jiaxing Prefecture and wreaked havoc in Jiaxing Prefecture, destroying several very important salt fields.
They killed the salt officials, robbed all the salt workers, destroyed all the salt-making tools, and stationed people in the area, making it impossible for the salt fields to operate and produce salt.
Jiaxing Prefecture is now shaken and uneasy, and many people have chosen to flee with their families to a safer place further north. The order in Jiaxing Prefecture is very chaotic, and the armed forces are seriously insufficient. As long as the Ming army launches an attack, Jiaxing Prefecture will definitely not be able to hold on.
Salt tax was a very important financial revenue in the Southern Song Dynasty, and it was also a material necessary for human survival. Officials did not expect that the Ming Navy would actually start to attack the salt fields.
And since they attacked the salt fields in Jiaxing Prefecture, it is difficult to say that they will not attack the salt fields in other areas. If the main salt fields in the coastal areas were attacked and controlled by the Ming army, then the Southern Song Dynasty would face an extremely serious salt panic.
Although there is well salt in Sichuan, water from afar cannot quench the thirst of nearby people!
That's not the only bad news;
The navy of the Ming Dynasty blocked Suzhou Ocean, intercepted all ships coming and going from all over the world to Lin'an, seized the ships, and drove all the people on board to the shore, triggering a wave of refugees.
They lost their livelihood and suffered heavy losses, so they asked the local Southern Song Dynasty officials for help. The officials were as big as a bucket and didn't know how to deal with it, so they could only blame Lin'an.
But Lin'an itself is also very difficult.
Since the Ming army took control of Suzhou Ocean, no ship carrying supplies has been able to reach Lin'an from Suzhou Ocean for several days. Lin'an City is facing a serious shortage of supplies, and there is no solution in sight in the short term.
The direct consequence of this situation is that the prices of many things in Lin'an City have begun to rise.
Because of this wave of price increases, some profiteers are trying to seize the opportunity to make money from the national crisis. They obviously have no shortage of sources, but they follow the price increases.
The first thing to rise was food prices.
For the feudal dynasty, whenever there was unrest or unrest, food prices were always the first to rise. It was like a harbinger of bad times. As long as food prices rose, unrest would immediately appear.
It was the same this time. When the news came that Suzhou Yang was blocked, the price of food in Lin'an rose accordingly.
Obviously, most of the food in Lin'an does not arrive by sea, but land and water transport. However, it does not matter. The profiteers who smelled the business opportunities immediately raised the price of food collectively and began to panic the market, thinking of taking advantage of the chaos. A wave of national financial crisis.
These grain merchants often have their own channels. They know that the Ming army cannot really threaten Lin'an City for the time being. They know that Lin'an City is still safe, but the people of Lin'an will definitely panic. If they don't take this opportunity to make a fortune, how long will it take?
Grain merchants began to take action, the market began to fluctuate, the people began to become unstable, and a wave of panic buying of grain began to appear.
Seeing the grain merchants getting rich, other merchants were naturally not to be outdone and immediately began to raise prices.
For example, the price of oil, cloth, and carbon. Prices in the Lin'an market are like a runner who hears the starting gun. Prices rise across the board at the first order, and everyone rushes to be the first, fearing that they will suffer a loss.
Many daily necessities cost only a few cents per catty in the morning, but became more than ten cents per catty in the afternoon. The upward trend in prices is astonishing.
Prices have gone up, and Lin'an residents have suffered.
Lin'an residents can earn an average of 100 cents a day, which may seem like a lot, but they are basically living on a paycheck. They earn as much as they spend. They have little savings and no way to save. In an era of stable prices, they can still exchange for food and clothing. Once prices fluctuate, their lives will become unsustainable.
As a result, people complained about this and were very dissatisfied. Some even yelled, fought, and even fought over each other at the entrances of major shops, causing civil disputes one after another and giving the Lin'an County Government in charge of management a headache.
The Lin'an County Magistrate reported that if this situation continues, it may affect the stability and public sentiment of the entire Lin'an City.
Zhao Hao had a big problem with this. On the one hand, he issued a government order to strictly prohibit the price increase of the daily necessities of the people. He sent people to arrest a group of profiteers who increased prices wantonly, suppressing a wave of prices. Then he sent people to Jiaxing Prefecture and the coastal areas. area to understand the situation and conduct further inspections.
Once these things happen, they are not easy to solve and will be very difficult.
Zhao Min had just become emperor and had little experience in this. He could only ask the ministers to think about it, thinking about ways to break the situation. He spent a lot of time, but he didn't come up with many ways. It was quite a mess. .
Prices were forcibly controlled through administrative means, but the merchants were dissatisfied and began to reduce the scale of sales, selling in daily quotas while supplies lasted. As a result, there was a situation in the market where people had money but could not buy anything.
As a result, Lin'an City's underground black market suddenly became lively.
It is true that there are policies above and countermeasures below, because many merchants have high-ranking officials and nobles behind them. No matter how many orders Zhao Hao gives, he cannot solve the actual difficulties.
The Southern Song government was in trouble here, and the Ming army's actions were also unambiguous. On April 22, the vanguard of the Ming army arrived in Changxing County and directly attacked Changxing County. Changxing County fell instantly.
The next target is Huzhou.
At sunset on the 23rd, the vanguard of the Ming army arrived in Huzhou Fucheng.
The capital city of Huzhou was Wucheng County earlier. In the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to celebrate the surrender of King Wu Yue, the fifteen townships in the southeast of Wucheng County were divided into Gui'an County. The two counties were governed by the same city and were also the capital of Huzhou. They had abundant population and abundant products. Rich.
When the Ming army arrived in Huzhou, Zhao Mi, the commander-in-chief of the Palace Front Division, had already led his troops to station in Fucheng for a while. He also put a lot of effort into arranging the city defense and placed many military facilities outside the city to defend against the Ming army. Enough preparation.
Although they were fully prepared, the Song army had no fighting will. Some military facilities outside the city on the hilly highlands could have protected the safety of Huzhou Fucheng. However, when the Ming army formed an array to launch an attack, the Song army always It quickly collapsed.
The Ming army's offensive routine has not changed, with large rockets and thunder cannons plus ordinary stone bombardment, and then the infantry formation attacks.
The Song army could often insist on fighting back during long-range attacks, posing a certain threat to the Ming army. Then when the Ming army launched an infantry attack, the Song army could not resist it and quickly retreated.
Using this method, in less than a day, on April 25, the vanguard of the Ming army advanced to the gate of Fucheng. Looking at the panicked Song army at the top of the city, they launched an siege without saying a word.
Yangzhou was not attacked mainly to speed up the progress of the war and reduce food losses.
Huzhou must be attacked in order to take advantage of the waterway controlled by Huzhou to go south directly to Lin'an. Moreover, the strength of the Song army in Huzhou is far greater than that of Yangzhou. If this army is not dealt with, Zhou Zhi will have trouble sleeping and eating.
