Su Xuanming wanted Master Tong to recommend him to defend the city.
He was dismissed from his official position and needed someone to recommend him if he wanted to re-enter officialdom.
Grand Tutor Tong was speechless. In the Great Zhou Dynasty, there was a wall between civil officials and military officials. This was the first time in his political career that he heard of a civil official wanting to become a military official.
"Can you fight?"
The question is about fighting, not war.
Who are you looking down on?
Su Xuanming: "I once beat my second brother together with my mother."
"Wow." Master Tong said without any emotion, full of sarcasm.
Su Xuanming: "I'm serious, not joking."
"Are you really looking for death? The rebel army can recognize you, but their arrows can't recognize you." Master Tong wanted to drive him away.
Su Xuanming insisted: "My mother can fight, my sister can fight, and my second brother can fight. I can definitely fight too! It doesn't make sense that a family of good bamboo shoots would produce a lazy bamboo shoot."
"Is this something that should be done? As a human being, you should have some self-awareness."
Su Xuanming said stubbornly: "I'm sure I can do it."
"Give me a reason and tell the truth. If you don't tell me the truth, I can ruin your business."
Su Xuanming knew that Master Tong was serious and had the ability to do so: "My mother will definitely come."
Master Tong immediately realized what Su Xuanming was planning: "You are worried that by then, the gates of Kyoto will not be open."
He stroked his beard again: "You still want to dedicate the entire Kyoto to your mother."
Su Xuanming did not deny it, and said confidently: "My mother came all the way to help, shouldn't she be rewarded?"
"Tsk. You are just like the emperor, thinking that Gu Nanxi will definitely come. You two are big gamblers."
Master Tong straightened his clothes and said, "Okay, I'll find you a good position."
The defense system of Kyoto was designed by having the Three Yamen command the troops, the Privy Council dispatch troops, and the Ministry of War have nominal power, thus ensuring that military power was concentrated in the hands of the emperor.
The three yamen are the Palace Front Department, the Imperial Guard Cavalry Department, and the Imperial Guard Infantry Department. They are the direct management agencies of the Imperial Guards. Each of the three yamen has a commander-in-chief, and they are not subordinate to each other and are directly responsible to the emperor.
If Su Xuanming were recommended to be the commander-in-chief, the emperor would definitely not agree.
Moreover, there are 100,000 imperial guards in Beijing and 100,000 outside Beijing. The 100,000 outside Beijing were taken away to Suining County by Li Aotian.
There are 100,000 imperial guards in the capital, and they are divided into many factions. Even if Su Xuanming goes in, he won't be able to command the troops.
The Three Yamen were in charge of the marching schedule, training, garrison and military registration management, but they did not have the power to mobilize troops.
If you want to mobilize troops, you must go through the Privy Council.
"Privy Council..." Grand Tutor Tong shook his head.
If you want to mobilize troops, the emperor must issue an order, and then the Privy Council must issue the order, and finally the three yamen must execute it. The military order cannot leave the Privy Council.
The Privy Councilor was a second-rank official appointed by the emperor. Su Xuanming was definitely not qualified.
The deputy envoy of the Privy Council is not allowed to report matters alone and must sign jointly with civil officials, which is useless.
Being a signatory of the Privy Council, a person in charge of documents and archives, did not meet Su Xuanming's requirements.
The Privy Council consisted of ten departments, which handled affairs concerning the north, Western Xia and Tubo, managed the organization, assessed the merits and demerits of military commanders, and supervised training.
None of them was what Su Xuanming wanted.
As for the Ministry of War, it sounds very powerful, but it is useless compared to the Imperial Guards.
"Hiss." Master Tong was stunned. He had never seen such a thing in his life, but he couldn't even find a position that Su Xuanming wanted!
Master Tong didn't believe it and thought about it over in his mind several times, but he couldn't find this loophole.
Tsk tsk.
The Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty was fully focused on internal defense, right? He was very careful to defend the interior, fearing that civil officials and military generals would usurp the throne.
Su Xuanming was dumbfounded. He thought this was a very simple matter.
The person in front of you is Master Tong, the evergreen in the political arena who has controlled the government for many years!
Is it so difficult to arrange a small military attaché?
Master Tong said that in Kyoto, it was really difficult to become a military officer with military power, especially when this person could not appear in front of the emperor, which made it even more difficult!
"How about, just forget it?" Master Tong advised.
"No! It's difficult to go up, but isn't it easy to go down? I'll just be an ordinary soldier guarding the city." Su Xuanming insisted.
A'niang was backstabbed too many times by the Emperor of the Great Zhou.
What if this time, the Emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty joined forces with the rebel army and surrounded A Niang from front and back?
Where can I seek justice? Is this unfair?!
Master Tong was helpless. He couldn't really let Su Xuanming be a cannon fodder and die, right?
He used his connections to get Su Xuanming into the imperial guards as a small captain, the kind who was required to go up to the city walls to guard the city.
Su Xuanming was satisfied. He arranged the guards in his house to be by his side in the name of temporarily recruited "street vagrants".
The guards at home are all elite soldiers carefully selected by A Niang from Yunzhou. The quality of each individual soldier is much better than that of the imperial guards.
"Our main target is the city gate. Once my mother comes and shouts to open the city gate, we will open it!"
"Yes, sir!" the guards lowered their voices and said in unison.
They have been looking forward to the day when Duke Yun will take over Kyoto for a long time.
Although Su Xuanming's colleagues felt strange about this, they did not ask any further questions.
Because of the defense system, the soldiers who went up to the city wall to defend the city were all strangers to each other, so no one paid much attention to a small lieutenant.
This was exactly what Su Xuanming wanted.
The days of defending the city were dull, tedious and hard, especially since the rebel army did not come again after the first wave of tentative attacks.
The guard told Su Xuanming: "The rebel army is gathering. In just two days, three groups of more than 10,000 rebels have crossed the Yangtze River and arrived at the gates of Kyoto."
"what does that mean?"
"It means that all the rebel troops are converging towards Kyoto."
This is the wealthy Kyoto, and all the rebel soldiers are after money, and everyone wants to take a bite of this big piece of fat meat.
When they heard that Kyoto was under siege, the rebel leaders in various prefectures and counties south of the Yangtze River could no longer sit still and led their troops here on their own initiative without Fang La's orders.
Although Fang La was very angry, there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn't do anything about it.
Su Xuanming felt a chill all over his body. How many people did Fang La have? He claimed that the army was 600,000. If we remove the water and cut it in half, that would still be 300,000.
If 300,000 people all came to Kyoto, how much would they eat, drink, defecate and urinate every day?
The food and grass brought by Fang La are definitely not enough, so once the army is assembled, they will definitely attack the city immediately!
Su Xuanming rubbed his face, feeling like a huge stone was weighing on his heart.
History is so strikingly similar.
Can Kyoto really hold off three hundred thousand hungry rebels?
The guards were all those who had retreated from the battle of Yunzhou. They looked very solemn and were not optimistic about Kyoto.
"The imperial guards in the capital are said to have 100,000 soldiers, but I think that's a bit exaggerated, no more than 70,000 at most. The other tens of thousands are made up of idlers in the market."
"The soldiers and generals were separated, and the makeshift garrison had no tacit understanding."
"On the battlefield, opportunities are fleeting. Every time we deploy troops, we have to wait for the Privy Council's order, which wastes time."
Compared to Yunzhou, Kyoto's defense system is too cumbersome! (End of this chapter)
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