Chapter 330 Persuasion (2 in 1)

The grand court meeting that opened in November was a complete mess. It was jaw-dropping that one of the nine ministers of the Secret Council, and probably the one with the most actual power and responsibility among the nine ministers, was directly transformed from the presiding judge in the court to a co-conspirator in the case.

At this time, Emperor Zhao turned away in anger and left the capital to inspect the river defense.

In this regard, some people thought that the emperor deliberately avoided the trial of the case and the imperial concubine's plea in order to reduce unnecessary trouble, but others said that this was the emperor's hint to the Ministry of Justice to let go and deal with the matter strictly and quickly. Others were a little entangled in the issues of the Imperial City Bureau and takeaways... But no matter what, Emperor Zhao's attitude of leaving Beijing to inspect the river defense was uncompromising, and could even be called decisive.

He said it that day and left the next day without any discussion.

You have to know that it snowed intermittently in the past few days. Although there was no snow accumulation, it was a bit muddy and would freeze in the morning and evening, which made the road conditions quite bad... But Emperor Zhao still set off.

Not only that, the official did not bring many people with him on this trip. He only had a thousand soldiers and four or five attendants, and he set off directly.

There were one thousand soldiers, five hundred of whom were guards in front of the emperor and five hundred were cavalrymen in the Yuetai camp.

Among the attendants, the one with the highest status was Liu Hongdao, the Assistant Minister of the Ministry of War and the Chief Water Conservancy Officer. Below him were Hanlin Academician Fan Zongyin, Lü Benzhong who had just been promoted to Direct Academician, in addition to Ren Baozhong, the Cabinet Gate Attendant, and Yu Yunwen, the Recorder in Charge of the Military Statistics Department.

He really didn't care about anything and just left.

After leaving Yuetai, the group went northwest along the Bian River, but first arrived at Heyin, an important town on the river... This place is not only the location of the Biankou, but also the shipyard of the Imperial Camp Navy. It can only be said that it is not a big deal to start the inspection of the river defense from here.

Back to the present, when they arrived at Heyin, Zhang Rong, the commander of the Imperial Navy, came to greet them early. Emperor Zhao was as loyal as ever, and put aside his airs and went directly to the shipyard with him. After entering the yard, the emperor pretended to inspect the ship under construction, and then left the dry dock and went to the military camp.

I would like to add here that as early as the reign of Emperor Shenzong, the dry dock technology became famous throughout the world through the successful repair of a huge ship in Jinming Lake, and was then widely promoted.

As for the shipbuilding technology itself, whether it is seagoing ships or inland ships, the Song Dynasty is basically at the world's leading level. After all, in another time and space, the uprising of Zhong Xiang and Yang Mo lasted for five or six years. In the later period, even the Dongting Lake rebels could start to mass-produce ships of various sizes, which shows the maturity of the relevant technology.

So in the current situation, the Song army, which had burned Xiaowusha and controlled the river defense at the beginning, certainly had no reason to give up these excellent surface technologies.

However, according to military reports, after suffering several losses, the Jurchens, like they had previously supported the Qingzhou pirates, were recruiting relevant craftsmen in Hebei, with the vague intention of using the old Yellow River route to build their own shipyard and fleet.

Of course, this is not the time to discuss these things.

Emperor Zhao left the dock and moved into the military camp which was integrated with the shipyard. He had to have a temporary snack at noon, which was pork and sheep bought from Zhengzhou in the south. Everyone, from the regular soldiers in the imperial camp to the craftsmen and laborers in the shipyard, including Emperor Zhao himself, had a bowl of meat and half a cup of wine.

In the afternoon, the official personally went to see the winter cloth related to the imperial camp navy that had been issued last month. He walked around for a long time and examined it carefully for more than an hour. Then, taking advantage of the warm winter sun in the afternoon, he turned to the river, climbed up the levee in person, and inspected the levee, fortifications, and river conditions again.

All I can say is that after being an official for so long, he has mastered the art of pretending. If you don't know, you would think that Zhao Jiu really understands all this.

"General Zhang, I checked the documents of the Ministry of War and found that some intelligence reports vaguely mentioned that the Jurchens also have a dry dock in Daming Prefecture? And they also want to build ships?" The person asking the question was Liu Hongdao, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and the Chief Water Conservancy Officer.

Moreover, as an official with seniority, Liu Hongdao's position in Beijing was obviously inferior to that of other provincial governors, and there was even a suspicion that he was vacant. He himself was a little disappointed at the beginning, but he endured it just because he thought that he could enter the central government and have a secret cabinet status, and that it would be closer to his hometown which had just been recovered not long ago.

But this time following Emperor Zhao here, thinking about his two positions, how could Liu Hongdao not know that the Emperor obviously had some specific arrangements for him. The two responsibilities of Vice Minister of the Ministry of War and Conservancy Bureau combined might not be impossible to achieve success. It was even very likely that Emperor Zhao was making some overall arrangements for the future Northern Expedition.

Therefore, after leaving Yuetai, Minister Liu became more and more concerned about the matter. He took the initiative to handle many miscellaneous affairs along the way, which made the three eunuchs Fan Zongyin, Lu Benzhong and Ren Baozhong feel as if they had eaten something... Lu Benzhong was simply reduced to the role of reading the court reports to the emperor every day.

"That's true."

Zhang Rong was wearing a cotton robe bestowed by the emperor last month. Hearing this, he stood there with his hands behind his back, exhaling a stream of white air. "The Jurchens have learned a lesson. They put the dock behind Daming Prefecture, which is really difficult to deal with. However, if you ask me... if you ask me to be frank, it is a good thing that the Jurchens are working hard to build ships."

"Oh?" Liu Hongdao became more serious.

"That's the reason." Zhang Rong frowned and explained. "Liu Shilang thought, even if there are ships coming out from the north, how can we find such skilled naval fighters? The same archers can shoot accurately on land, but it's not the same on ships. And the operation of large and small ships, large ships often have dozens or hundreds of laborers on the wheels, how to dispatch them left and right, how to move in unison, how to move large and small ships, how to retreat and advance, all these are just sayings... The newly formed navy is definitely not our opponent!"

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