In addition to the Imperial Guards in the Imperial Palace and the Fenghong Villa on the outskirts of the Imperial City, the only people with military force in the Imperial City were the four-door garrison of the Imperial City and the yamen of the local yamen in the city.
These powers are not worth mentioning on ordinary days. Not to mention the distance, the 20,000 people of the Imperial Guard alone can smash the four defenders to pieces, let alone the yamen servants in the yamen. Are they used for fighting?
But it's a bit weak, but it has its own time.
Whether the Imperial Guards speak or not depends on the emperor's wishes, but now that the Emperor is silent, the Imperial Guards are like a pool of stagnant water, completely undisturbed by the outside world. Of course, no one dares to attack the Imperial Guards. That is the real way to seek death and lack of brains.
Apart from the imperial guards, the closest armed forces in the imperial city are the four gate guards and the city's government officials.
The "big exams" of the past dynasties were not only full of blood, but also summarized a lot of experiences and lessons for those who came after them, and even some very mysterious rules.
For example, some of the people who won the "big test" in the end were those who had mastered the swords in the imperial city in advance. These armed forces are equivalent to the handles of knives.
Because extreme situations are likely to occur at the end of the "big test". If you are unarmed by then, you will be almost certain to die. Otherwise, you will have a huge chance of winning.
The competition became fierce from the beginning.
First, two of the four garrison generals saw something was wrong and reported directly to the Ministry of War, saying that they were sick and could no longer guard the imperial city for His Majesty, and hoped to return to their hometown to spend the rest of their lives.
The Ministry of War has always been very cautious about such requests for retirement, not to mention the requests from the imperial city guards. They usually give a reply after repeated consideration. And before the Ministry of War replies, if you dare to hang up and leave, you are leaving your post without authorization, and your head will be chopped off if you are questioned.
But this time the Ministry of War acted quickly. The two city gate guards received a reply within five days of submitting their request. Even the review procedures were just a formality, and there was no careful checking of the reasons for the request as normal.
The two people who resigned from their posts breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly went to the Ministry of War to make the handover. Then, without stopping for a while, they left the imperial city and returned to their hometowns, as if they were running for their lives.
After the two retired, someone immediately filled the two vacancies. Everyone seems to have been prepared long ago, there is no time to grind, and there is no need to mobilize, front and rear, there is no window for the four gates of the imperial city to have "no generals in place".
It looked better after that.
Every now and then, various scandals involving the imperial city guards and local government officials were exposed. Even the matter of picking up ashes at home was spread by unknown people in the streets and alleys. In the past month, five positions have been changed one round at a time!
What about the person who was replaced? Either he went to jail in the Ministry of Punishment, or he committed suicide at home out of fear of crime. Anyway, no one can settle down, and the end is miserable.
Shen Hao has always paid close attention to these news, not because he is meddlesome, but because the black water in his hand was ordered by Jiang Cheng to pay close attention to the disturbances in the imperial city.
It was also the fierce competition for the four gates of the imperial city that set off the intense "big exam" of the royal family.
These news are like a "movie", filling Shen Hao's "leisure" life outside the battlefield. There are no flower houses here, there are no fragrant singers, and they don’t even dare to drink wine. A group of energetic men spend the whole day either competing in martial arts or bragging together. Those bragging can really "go to heaven" Yes, sometimes people with Shen Hao's three views can be dumbfounded and say how awesome he is.
Blackwater's intelligence always gives Shen Hao new opportunities to use his brain. At the same time, he is also very fortunate that he is in the military now, far away from the ups and downs within the country. No matter how the situation changes, at present It seems that it will not affect him. Just hold your hands and watch the show.
Judging from the timeline released by Black Water, the time of the royal family's "big test" began when the seventh prince Yang Shu took the power of the money and grain austerity plan from the emperor, and it was between this time and the "big test" that entered a white-hot stage. The time transition was very short, and it was not step-by-step. It was directly affected by the war situation in the south.
Therefore, the white-hot node on the timeline of the discharge of Black Water suddenly started after Jianchuan completely broke through the barbarian confrontation line.
Based on Blackwater's analysis, they believe that the fundamental reason for the sudden intensification of the "big test" is "time". As the war progresses, the process of the "big test" will also speed up, and it is even very likely that the two will be completed at the same time.
This does not mean that at the end of the war, several princes will decide the absolute winner, but that the time limit of the "big test" will run out. After that, the emperor will directly name the winner and announce the end of the "big test". Therefore, in order to avoid the uncertain factor of the emperor, the safest way for the seven princes is to sweep away all the remaining competitors. By then, they will be the only one left, and victory will be impossible.
Shen Hao had an idea, or a guess. Is there a possibility that because of the war in the south, the Ministry of War or the emperor in turn controls the progress of this "big test"?
Because Shen Hao had read a lot of history books of the Jing Dynasty before, in fact, the royal family's "big exam" was a name given by historians many years ago and has been used by future generations to this day.
Each of the royal "big exams" recorded in the book took a long time, with some lasting more than five years and some as short as two years. Entering a fierce stage, such as fighting for the "knife handle" of the imperial city, usually occurs in the middle and late stages of the "big test", which is very different from this time. It was even the first time in the history of the Jing Dynasty that the "big test" encountered a war.
Recently, Shen Hao, who was in the army, also received first-hand news that there were further adjustments to the military situation in the south. The 30,000 people who were previously rotated will be deployed to Baektu Gorge again, and the protruding part of Jianchuan is also adjusting the focus of its forces. The troops from the middle and lower military camps will be combined and deployed in the lower part, and the vacant space in the middle will be directly shrunk in the form of a military station.
In this way, Jianchuan's aggressiveness will be sharply weakened, and his functionality will be doubled. It became a tube that penetrated the body of the barbarians, continuously transporting soldiers and supplies towards Baekdu Gorge.
The combined strength of both sides now exceeds 150,000. The direct pressure on the barbarians can be imagined.
This did not give the barbarians any chance to breathe, and it was also so fast that it seemed to take less time to digest. It gave Shen Hao the feeling that he was trying to grab time. I don't know whether this was Zuo Yuliang's military strategy, or whether he was forced to use troops like this because of the deadline given by the emperor.
Shen Hao felt that if his guess was correct, once there were any breakthroughs in the Baektu Gorge, the "big test" in the imperial city would probably cause even greater disturbances.
