At this time, Naren Baozhong continued to speak without changing his expression: "So, please forgive me, I can only give a rough summary, it is difficult to be accurate."

"Come to think of it." Zhao Jiu, who had expected such a turn of events, turned around and looked at him seriously. He admired this old Dangxiang man more and more.

No matter what, this person still has talent, so why not give him some opportunities?

Sure enough, Ren Baozhong seized the opportunity without hesitation and gave his summary one by one... As expected, it was similar to what Zhao Jiu had summarized in the past few days.

It is said that ever since the court forcibly and formally implemented Zhang Jun's package of preparations for the Northern Expedition in early March, as the news spread to the local areas, and of course related matters began to be carried out immediately, the central government immediately received a variety of feedback.

However, among these five matters, the empress's appointment and the restoration of reputation were too sensitive, especially since Emperor Zhao and the prime ministers had shown their resolute attitudes through official reports and a grand court meeting in early March. Therefore, few people were willing to discuss these two matters and bring bad luck upon themselves. After all, not everyone had a good brother like Li Jing, who could be sent to Xingqing Prefecture to be the prefect.

Didn’t you see that even the Chief Censor Li Guang and Li Xiantai didn’t say a word this time?

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the implementation of these two things did not involve much and the matters were relatively simple. The court sent envoys directly to Shaolin Temple and Dongxiao Palace on the second day of March, and appointed Quan Bangyan and Guo Zhongxun together.

At the same time, the Jiancai issue was a real tough nut to crack and was the key to determining the success or failure of the preparations for the Northern Expedition. So for a while many people were watching and hesitant about this matter... No one dared to volunteer to participate, and no one dared to criticize easily, they just waited and watched.

To put it bluntly, many silent potential opponents are probably waiting for problems to arise in the specific implementation of this matter, and then they will speak up.

As for the alliance, it takes time to wait for reactions from all parties, and it is not a good time to intervene.

Of course, the messengers have been sent out on a large scale.

Relatively speaking, for now, everyone's focus is on the move to slightly expand the military, which is a relatively simple matter with mature conditions and involves a lot of interests.

As a result, within ten days, secret letters and memorials to the emperor came in one after another, and their contents were varied.

According to Ren Baozhong's summary, the opinions from all sides are as follows:

For example, the generals in the imperial camp often wrote letters to the emperor to describe how important the place where their headquarters was stationed was, how powerful the enemy was, and how stretched their military strength was. At the same time, they also wrote about how good their troops were at fighting in the past, how they were able to defeat a larger force with a smaller one, and how outstanding their achievements were... In a word, they wanted to gain more troops for their headquarters.

In sharp contrast, local officials in various parts of the front line flocked to the memorials, but most of them described the difficulties of maintaining local troops, how the local people's strength was squeezed out by the garrison, how poor the finances were, and how local security was troubled by the garrison. It was obvious that they did not want the newly established troops after the expansion to be stationed in their areas, or that the proportion of troops stationed in their areas would increase again.

What's interesting is that while the military commanders were fighting for the number of troops in each army, they always tried to trip up their opponents, intentionally or unintentionally hinting at how incompetent the other armies were. However, the civil officials were almost unanimous and extremely united. From the east and west roads of Beijing where Yue's army was stationed to northern Shaanxi, where it had just been recovered, there was no place where the civil officials welcomed more troops stationed.

Those who were qualified to write memorials all wrote them, and those who were not qualified directly wrote official documents to put pressure on the provincial capital and the Privy Council.

Even Wanqi Xie wrote a letter saying that the existence of Yue Fei's troops had posed a huge obstacle to the economic revival of the Jingdongxi Road!

At the same time, there were some debates in the central government, but the focus was higher... Some people suggested adding more personnel to the Imperial Camp Navy to ensure the stability of the Yellow River defense line, others suggested massively expanding the Imperial Camp Navy in order to harass the Jin Kingdom's rear as soon as possible, and of course more people suggested expanding the Imperial Camp Central Army, which is the direct force here in Tokyo.

With the expansion of the military force, officers were naturally needed, and there were many memorials recommending candidates.

And at this time, we must grasp the key points.

"Excuse me." At the end, Ren Baozhong bowed his hands seriously and said under the complicated gazes of several close ministers around him. "These are actually minor details. Will the emperor not allow troops to be stationed there just because some prefectures and counties oppose it? Or will the emperor give them an additional thousand soldiers because some commander is more boastful? And I roughly summarize that in the matter of expanding the army, there are actually several things that the emperor faces... Should we expand on land or on water? Should we expand cavalry or infantry? Should we put the heavy troops in Guanxi or Jingdong? When recruiting people, should the core generals be the old generals who were eliminated before or promoted from below? When supplementing the middle and lower-level officers, should we use old soldiers or new ones?"

Zhao Jiu nodded repeatedly after hearing this: "Your Excellency is thoughtful... But I have been a little blinded by these things these days... What are the specifics of these?"

Ren Baozhong was overjoyed, and hurriedly took another half step forward, bowing and saying, "Your Majesty... First, should we expand the army on land or on water? If we expand on land, it will be convenient for the decisive battle after crossing the river during the Northern Expedition; if we expand on water, it will be convenient for advancing and retreating."

After saying that, Ren Baozhong immediately looked at Emperor Zhao with a little anticipation.

Zhao Jiu came up with the answer after a little thought... The Northern Expedition was a last-ditch effort, and the decisive battle was what decided everything. If one had to make a choice between the two, of course, one would choose to expand the army.

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!