"Hmph, this kid, he can't say anything nice!"
After Jin Jiande left, Jin Jianren still looked angry. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and coldly cursed.
Prince Qing remained calm, sipping his tea without saying a word.
Seeing that he didn't speak, Jin Jianren frowned and said, "Father, you didn't listen to what Jiande said, did you?"
Prince Qing put down his teacup, stroked his beard, and after a long while spoke:
“Jiande has come to complain repeatedly, which shows that the rebels had a significant impact on him back then.”
"Didn't Xiong Qian send over military intelligence a few days ago? They should be fighting at Bailiyuan right now, and new military intelligence should be arriving in the next few days."
At this point, he raised an eyebrow and said in a low voice, "If... there are any unfavorable signs, then we really need to make arrangements."
Upon hearing this, Jin Jianren shook his head: "Impossible!"
"With such a large force at our disposal, even if we send an incompetent general, we cannot be defeated. Xiong Qian is no fool either; we will certainly not lose!"
Prince Qing did not refute this. He stood up, put his hands behind his back, and said:
"Um.."
"Let's check the military situation first."
After saying that, he left.
Seeing his father leave, Kim Geon-in felt a strange surge of anger.
The anger may stem from Jin Jiande's constant contradictory remarks and excessive pronouncements, which have become tiresome to hear.
"Damn it!" With a cold snort, Jin Jianren slammed his hand on the table.
——
Above Zhongnan Pass, in the beacon tower.
The fuel, a mixture of reeds, tamarisk, wet firewood, and grease, is burning.
The flames were not strong, because what was needed was not fire, but thick black smoke.
Fuel made from this material produces thick, straight black smoke, unlike the thin, light smoke from a stove in an ordinary household.
The thick smoke rose from the beacon tower, shooting straight up into the sky like a black pillar.
Such a conspicuous mark greatly expands the visible range, making it easily visible to people with normal vision in the surrounding area.
But on this day, the smoke rising from the sky truly startled everyone.
The reason is simple: Zhongnan Pass is not far from Jinling and is the most important line of defense outside the capital. A large number of troops are stationed on Baili Plain outside Zhongnan Pass.
Even when there were internal and external troubles and battles with foreign tribes in the south and north, such intense smoke signals never ignited in Zhongnan Pass.
This is the most urgent military situation.
Soon after this black pillar pierced the sky, beacon towers throughout Zhongnanguan also caught fire.
One message after another, the smoke signals from the drums quickly relayed urgent military intelligence, far faster than the urgent dispatches of scouts.
Thus, from that day onward, from Zhongnanguan to the capital, beacon towers burned one after another, and smoke rose into the sky.
The urgent military situation began at Zhongnanguan and gradually spread to the capital.
A strong sense of crisis began to spread, and the smoke signals were clear evidence of this.
Soon, within a day and night, by noon the next day, the signal fire had reached Nanjing before the scouts could relay it.
From high-ranking officials to soldiers in the army and ordinary people, everyone saw the smoke rising straight into the sky.
——
Jinling, Chengbei District.
Er Mao, who established his authority among the children with just a few dozen peanuts, has successfully transformed people from calling him "Er Mao" or "slippery" to "boss" or "Brother Mao".
On this day, as always, he mingled among the children with the peanuts he had taken from his father the night before.
However, things are different today. There are far fewer teenagers, only a handful, as half of them are kept at home by their parents.
Er Mao didn't care much; with fewer people around, he could have more peanuts left over.
Besides, Wen'er is here too, hey, that's enough, I happen to have some good news to tell her today.
As usual, after distributing peanuts and giving out shuttlecocks, and shooing away the henchmen, Er Mao took Wen'er's hand and sat down in front of a house's steps.
"Your hand is much better, Wen'er." Er Mao let go of her hand and took peanuts out of his pocket.
Wen'er wrapped her loose clothes tightly around herself, sat on the steps with her legs together, her elbows resting on her knees, and her hands supporting her chin.
Beneath her extremely long eyelashes were a pair of bright, large eyes. She looked at Er Mao, who was sniffling and intently picking peanuts, and smiled:
"Yes, a few days ago a very kind person gave out porridge. When I went to get some, they saw that my hands were frozen and gave me some ointment. I don't know the name of the ointment, but after applying it, my hands didn't itch as much."
As she spoke, she pulled a small, tightly wrapped square piece of paper from her loose sleeve and handed it to Er Mao, saying:
“Brother Er Mao, your hands aren’t frozen, but if your parents’ hands are, they can use them too.”
Er Mao glanced at it casually and saw that the handkerchief was embroidered with a red plum blossom. He knew at a glance that it was a valuable item, and he shook his head.
"No, you keep it. My parents don't need it."
"We don't need them now, but we might need them later. I'll share half of them." Wen'er said, about to take off her handkerchief, but Er Mao grabbed her hand and handed her the peeled peanuts.
"Hey! I don't need this stuff! You keep it!" he said with great magnanimity.
"Oh, okay." Wen'er was a little disappointed and dejected, but she could only tuck it into her sleeve.
Er Mao, however, didn't notice her expression. He sniffed and said with a smile:
Can you smell it?
The little girl was picking up a peanut when she heard this and nodded: "I can smell it, the peanut smells good."
Er Mao dusted off the peanut shells from his clothes, stood up, put one hand on his hip, and pointed into the distance with the other, where the sun was:
"No, it doesn't taste like peanuts."
"It smells like smoke, the smell of gunpowder!"
"This morning, I heard my father say that the beacon towers outside Nanjing were lit with smoke signals."
At this point, he bent down, his small face unusually solemn:
"Wen'er, do you know what this means?"
Wen'er was sniffing the smoke, though she couldn't actually smell it. But seeing Er Mao's suddenly serious face, she paused, then said:
"There's going to be a war, and only when there's a war will there be smoke signals, right?"
Er Mao straightened up again, crossed his arms, and, facing the sunlight streaming down on him, said with remarkable maturity:
"The signal fire has arrived; the fall of Nanjing is imminent."
"But when the clouds part and the moon shines, listen..." He suddenly stopped halfway through his sentence, scratching his head repeatedly, unable to come up with the second half.
In fact, I saw his father do this and say these words at home this morning.
Er Mao felt that his father's eyes, movements, and tone when he said those words were exactly like Uncle Zhao Zhennan's, and he even had a strange kind of handsomeness about him.
Therefore, he stood aside and silently memorized it.
He even practiced at home several times before leaving, just waiting to show off his handsome appearance to Wen'er later.
It's only halfway through the presentation, and the process isn't finished yet.
Unable to recall the second half of the sentence, Er Mao became so anxious that he scratched his head, bent over, and his nose started running.
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