"This achievement is worthy of this reward." Mr. Xu nodded immediately.

At this moment, a young military officer with a wound on his face stepped forward, bowed and greeted, but spoke with a Lingnan accent. Zhao Jiu didn't pay attention to it, but handed over the two pieces of white paper he brought with him: "Give it to the craftsman, I want to talk to Mr. Xu alone..."

The Guangnan assistant official with a wound on his face immediately bowed his head and left. Yuwen Xuzhong and others looked at each other and could only retreat. Suddenly, no one left the hall except the king and his ministers.

But at this time, Zhao Jiu, who wanted to chat, did not speak directly, but turned behind the statue. It turned out that there was another deep space behind the statue. Only the skylight was opened inside, and the light was abundant, so he could see clearly, and it was precisely because he could see clearly that the governor of the capital was stunned and lost his composure as soon as he turned around.

There was nothing else to it. Everywhere you looked, there were densely packed numbers of them, more than tens of thousands of them, all of which were wooden plaques with military ranks and names written on them.

"Mr. Xu should know that I don't like offering sacrifices." Zhao Jiu spoke at this time. "But I have come here countless times these days... When we were on the Huai River, the soldiers gathered in a hurry, and many of them died without leaving any names. Now under Yao Mountain, because the Western Army was organized according to their hometowns, and the Imperial Camp Army had already been registered, I know many names, but it is still not enough... So, I thought, if I really go straight to Huanglong one day, why not erect a big monument in a conspicuous place?"

It took a lot of effort for Xu Xianggong to come back to his senses, and then he whispered: "What the emperor said makes sense, but what does it have to do with Li Shifu inheriting the title of founding duke?"

"Of course it's related." Zhao Jiu said with his hands behind his back. "Mr. Xu, I can't forget these people..."

“It’s natural!”

"I often ask myself, for whom did I go through so much hardship and risk my life to preserve this country? The Zhao family? But the Zhao family is all in the north, and I am the only one left. If I want to enjoy the life of my family, I might as well run to the southeast and end the rest of my life. Believe it or not, even if Concubine Pan is pregnant, I have done so many things for the many people in front of me and behind me..."

"Min Xin."

"Listen to me... So-called, from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the thousands of generations of descendants, from my own personal feelings to the common people of the world, from the sky to the earth... Be it public or private, since I have become the official, the Son of Heaven, the Emperor, I don't ask for thousands of years, but I can't be too embarrassing, right?"

“…”

"After this battle, I couldn't sleep day and night, thinking about many messy things... How to clean up the rebellion in the rear? How to appease the people who have been exploited by the government and harassed by soldiers and bandits in the past few years? How to rectify the government, how to train the troops? Can we make gunpowder bags that are not afraid of water? Can we lay tracks along the Yellow River to transport troops? Can we build sea vessels to attack Liaodong and Bohai? Can we distribute the court bulletin to the whole country? Can we settle the scholars and farmers and enrich the businessmen?"

Mr. Xu hesitated several times to speak, but Zhao Jiu just kept talking with his hands behind his back:

"How many years will it take to march north? How many years will it take to attack Huanglong?"

"After the pacification of the Yanyun homeland, should Xixia be recovered? Should Jiaozhi be taken back? Should Dali be dealt with? Aren't these places the homeland of the Han people?"

"After we recover the Han homeland, will the Xiongnu and Xianbei appear again on the northern grasslands? Should we annex the Western Regions and sandwich the northern desert? I heard that Yelu Dashi mobilized more than ten tribes, claiming to restore the country, but he actually went west. Will we run into them again? And there's Goryeo. If we fight to the death with the Jurchens, don't we have to worry about Goryeo?"

"These tablets are here not to persuade me to stop fighting, but to persuade me not to let them down, not to forget them, to destroy the enemy outside, and not to let Guanzhong, Luoyang, Henan, Huaishang, the heartland of our country, fall into such tragic places again! I have never expected to live forever, but I can't let Guanzhong suffer such a war again in just a few decades, right?"

Mr. Xu sighed slightly. He wanted to speak several times but kept silent.

"Han Shizhong was directly crowned as a king, bypassing the title of Duke, and he inherited the title at the same time as Li Shifu... I intend to establish a real title in the border areas to deal with the Western Regions, Dali, and Jiaozhi." Zhao Jiu finally told the truth. "But can I say this outside? Wouldn't it be ridiculous to say it? Even the rebellion behind me has not been quelled. And I really don't know whether the real title is effective, but since I have thought about these things, I have to have some ideas, right?"

Xu Jingheng finally spoke reluctantly: "The government has great ambitions..."

"I am not ambitious. I am only in my twenties this year. What I am talking about is only the homeland of the Han and Tang Dynasties. It's just that the Song Dynasty occupied half of the country for more than a hundred years. I am used to being a coward and I still want to deceive myself... For more than a hundred years, the Han people in Yanyun no longer recognize the southerners as their fellow tribesmen! This is even more true in Jiaozhi!"

Xu Jingheng's expression changed slightly, but he still responded with an effort: "But we still have to stabilize the country before we can resist foreign aggression."

"I know!" Zhao Jiu turned his head back. "But I am limited to the Western Regions and Jiaozhi. It is inappropriate to try to inherit the title, but it can't be said to be making trouble without reason, right?"

Xu Jingheng nodded helplessly: "Although I think it is indeed a bit far-fetched and may not be appropriate, but if there is a reason, it may not be impossible to try to discuss it."

"But it's the same thing." Zhao Jiu suddenly turned around and stared at the other person. "This kind of thing cannot be said... Last time, when I talked to Uncle Zongzheng about things that could not be said, we could only hide in the Great Hall... But Mr. Xu, where in the world are there so many temples and monasteries for us, the monarch and his subjects, to go in and talk about these things anytime and anywhere?"

Xu Jingheng was silent for a while, and Zhao Jiu also stopped talking. The king and his subject stared at each other for a long time behind the tablets filled with statues of gods.

Finally, Xu Xianggong bowed and said, "After this battle, when the emperor has cleaned up Guanxi and returned to Tokyo, will he recall the envoys from all over the country?"

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