Chapter 93 Fear

Zhao Jiu did not deliberately finish the game of Gobang that he had worked so hard to teach Liu Ziyu. Instead, he immediately stood up and gave a series of orders:

Send out scouts to quickly explore westward along the north and south banks of the Ru River;

Officials were sent to various surrounding villages and towns to assist local officials in leading the people into Ruyang;

Send a messenger to the north to find Wang De and Han Shizhong, inform them of the current situation, and ask them to be careful and cautious to avoid being besieged and attacked in the wild;

Then, because Yang Yizhong was not there, he specially ordered Hu Yantong, who was in the city at the time, to take charge of the city defense and be careful, and to send the imperial guards to the city defense.

Finally, of course, he ordered the four ministers, the Chief Censor Zhang Jun, the Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Camp Wang Yuan and others to come and see him.

At this time, while the ministers were not yet here, Emperor Zhao called for someone to help him put on his armor while asking the military advisor Liu Ziyu beside him, "Yan Xiu, did I miss anything in this deployment?"

Liu Ziyu was obviously stunned by Emperor Zhao's calmness and orderliness. After a long pause, he bowed and responded, "Your Majesty is calm and composed, like an ancient emperor. All the dispatches and assignments are appropriate. I am really surprised..."

Zhao Jiu sat in the corridor, letting the eunuch help him put on his armor, and couldn't help laughing: "Habit becomes second nature. After sitting in the front line for two months, even a fool would understand something."

"It's just that the emperor." Liu Ziyu hesitated for a moment, but still spoke seriously. "I think the emperor doesn't need to wear armor to avoid unnecessary trouble."

Zhao Jiu was slightly startled, and immediately signaled the eunuch beside him to stop temporarily, then stared at Liu Ziyu and asked: "Why is this?"

"Your Majesty... just now your Majesty gave you five instructions. I would like to ask you five questions." Liu Ziyu said sternly. "May I?"

"Tell me."

"First of all... Is Ruyang City strong?"

Of course it is sturdy!

Scholar Kobayashi next to him had already caught his breath, and his old habit of interrupting others in his mind naturally came back to him...but for some reason, this time he just responded instinctively in his heart, but did not think deeply about it. Instead, he was a little dazed.

"Of course it is strong." With the chain on his arm, Emperor Zhao sighed slightly and answered seriously. "Ruyang City is a famous city in the world. Although the ancient county was called Runan, this city is obviously north of the Ru River, so it is called Ruyang... The Ru River flows from the north, but it flows around the south of the city and goes east, so the city is surrounded by water on three sides and a high wall on one side. Such a city can no longer be called strong, and there are not many decent big cities in the world."

"That's right." Liu Ziyu nodded repeatedly. "In fact, if it weren't for this, General Han wouldn't have asked you to come here first when Caizhou City was still in chaos... Then I would like to ask again, why was such a strong city easily breached by the Jin people before?"

"Of course it's because there was no defense." Zhao Jiu shook his head repeatedly. "You forgot that Henan Yin Sun Zhaoyuan wanted to recruit the defeated soldiers under this city, but the defeated soldiers killed him instead."

Liu Ziyu did not comment, but just remained silent.

"It has nothing to do with this." Seeing this, Emperor Zhao immediately realized his mistake and changed his words. "In the final analysis, the Jingxi army was in a state of collapse and never regained its strength. In this state of collapse, nothing can be done... It's not like I haven't seen the collapse of the army before."

"Then I will ask you one more question. Are the two thousand soldiers led by Commander Huyan and the Imperial Guard in the city the kind of soldiers who would be terrified and flee at the first sign of trouble?"

Zhao Jiu finally laughed: "I know, Yan Xiu wants to say that this battle is not too dangerous, so the military affairs can be left to Hu Yantong. I should sit quietly in the city and appease the people? Just like when I was in Huaishang in the past, I just sat on the top of the city and controlled the others not to interfere in the military affairs, and I did my best?"

"Yes, but it's more than that." Liu Ziyu smiled, but he bowed and asked again. "Your Majesty, I have two more questions..."

Before he finished speaking, there was a commotion outside the yard. Zhao Jiu quickly tore off the armor chain on his shoulder and stuffed it under the chessboard. Feng Yi, who had been listening for a while, drove several eunuchs holding armor back into the room without waiting for Emperor Zhao to speak.

And sure enough, a moment later, Yuwen Xu Zhong, one of the four ministers, appeared in the courtyard first.

There was no way these people could move so fast. They were still on the road and did not regard Ruyang City as a serious stopover.

For example, Emperor Zhao naturally lived in the backyard of the government office. Generally, the front hall of the government office was the meeting hall, and the entire government office was naturally the palace. The two ministers of the East Palace occupied the county government office one street away. For convenience, the two ministers of the West Palace of the Privy Council occupied an empty house close to both places. As for the commanders of the Imperial Camp, they simply carried out Emperor Zhao’s fine tradition and robbed a Buddhist temple in the city...

"Officials!"

Yuwen Xuzhong walked into the courtyard, glanced at Xiaolin, who was still in a trance, and Liu Ziyu, the new minister who saluted him, and before returning the salute, he hurriedly bowed and asked. "I was summoned here, and on the way I saw dozens of guards suddenly rushing out from the imperial camp and heading to various places. May I ask what happened?"

"It is one thing, but it is not urgent."

In the spring morning sunshine, the shadows of the trees in the courtyard danced, and the official Zhao, dressed in casual clothes, sat cross-legged under the porch, holding the chessboard without moving, and answered calmly, just like a master of Chinese studies teaching people the Three Character Classic. "Let Yuwen Xianggong know that the Zhao Zongyin of Wuguan, the monk mentioned before, went out of the pass to help Fan Zhixu in Nanyang, but was defeated on the way and lost all his troops. Now everyone has fled to Xiangyang, and Lin Xueshi was forced to turn back overnight. I just let someone inform Han Shizhong and Wang De of this news, and then call you to discuss it."

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