Chapter 260 How Does the Queen Want Me to Reward You?
The Yuchengguan city wall was blown up?
At this moment, everyone looked at each other with a bit of trance in their eyes.
Even if they had never been to the border, they knew what a thick city wall meant in defending against the enemy.
But what is that explosive?
Is that thing really that powerful?
Doubts flashed through everyone's mind, and even the emperor was waiting attentively for Lu Xinran's next words.
Lu Xinran was flipping through the pamphlets of several deputy generals. During the siege of Yucheng Pass, the empress had been on the south gate side, farthest away from Ma Linyuan, so the information she knew was told to her by others afterwards.
Two of the six lieutenants happened to be with Ma Linyuan because Xie Lang was worried that Ma Linyuan would send all 50,000 men to the North Gate.
They happened to see the whole process. Lu Xinran flipped through it and then sighed.
[When attacking the city, the Queen and General Xie specifically mentioned that explosives were not allowed to be used. The walls of Yucheng Pass had been in disrepair for a long time and could not withstand the war. However, Ma Linyuan was eager to win, and after learning the formula and production method of explosives, he made several hundred of them privately.]
[He exchanged almost all the resources he brought from the capital for materials that could be used to make explosives, and even embezzled most of the food and straw.]
[In order to have an absolute advantage after victory, he would ask General Xie and General Qi to give up their positions as the commander of Yucheng Pass to him.]
[Unfortunately, man proposes, God disposes. His reckless approach caused the foreign tribes in the city, who were already panicking over gunpowder, to fall into complete panic.]
[Even Chahar was ready to abandon the city and flee at the repeated requests of his subordinates.]
【Originally, Chahar was planning to escape from the west gate, and General Qi led his troops to attack there. However, because General Qi was still injured, the attack was the slowest.】
[But Ma Linyuan was too smart before the battle. When he arrived at the border, he tried his best to bribe one of Chahar's men. If he wanted to achieve military merit, he needed Chahar to escape from the north gate.]
[That subordinate teamed up with several other people and successfully persuaded Chahar to open the north gate with the power of explosives, preparing to escape from Yuchengguan and return to the outside of the pass to plan the next step.]
[But Ma Linyuan had made all these preparations in order to capture Chahar alive and escort him back to Beijing in exchange for a reward, so he led his troops to charge up as soon as the city gates were opened.]
[The soldiers who had not yet withdrawn from the city wall launched a hail of arrows, and Ma Linyuan was pierced into a sieve. The two lieutenants following him did not even have a chance to stop him.]
[When the rain of arrows stopped, Ma Linyuan had already fallen off his horse, and Chahar's warhorse had trampled over his body.]
[All this happened too quickly. Once Ma Linyuan died, all the soldiers he brought with him became headless flies and had no way of stopping Chahar.]
[When General Xie and General Qi received the news and rushed over, they only saw Chahar and his men running away, and the city wall was half collapsed by the explosion.]
【General Xie has already given Ma Linyuan some respect by not writing about his suicidal behavior in the military newspaper.】
[It's a pity that he was willing to give Ma Linyuan the last bit of dignity, but he forgot that the emperor was suspicious. The more he covered up for him, the more suspicious the emperor would become, thinking that they had taken advantage of the chaos to kill him.]
[Tsk, the imperial power tactics... how ridiculous. ]
After Lu Xinran finished flipping through the booklets of several people, he sighed and sat up straight.
She quietly pulled Lu Xinlan beside her and asked, "Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?"
Why does the emperor act like everyone in the world owes him ten taels of silver?
Lu Xinlan came to her senses. When she was in Yucheng Pass, she heard many people talking about how Ma Linyuan died in the battle. There were also some people in the city who took the opportunity to discredit Xie Lang and Qi Yu.
She had some doubts about the cause of Ma Linyuan's death, but she never expected the truth to be so ridiculous.
"Maybe... because His Majesty hasn't spoken yet."
We must always give the emperor some face.
The Queen looked at the Emperor calmly. This was the truth.
He carefully selected a fool to go to the border, who not only failed to provide any help, but also blew up the wall of Yucheng Pass.
Once the city walls were blown up, it was as if the city had not been conquered. The soldiers defending the city had to stay alert at all times to prevent Chahar from leading his troops back again.
The emperor closed his eyes and slowly exhaled a breath. He still couldn't accept that what he had just said was the truth.
Malinyuan!
How can you be so stupid!
Doesn't his behavior make him, who sent the person, look particularly stupid?
"Minister of War!"
The award could not be delayed any longer, so he raised his voice and called out calmly.
Zhang Yongping, who had just arrived at the square, did not bother to go back and sit down. He walked to the side of the empress with the draft award decree in his hands.
"His Majesty."
He bowed and handed the draft edict to Eunuch Fu, then stood up calmly and watched the emperor take the edict and glanced at it coldly.
"Just give the award according to what you proposed. As for the queen..."
He rubbed his fingers gently on his knees: "How does the Queen want me to reward you?"
"I sincerely request Your Majesty to allow the descendants of the Zhang family to join the army again and do their best for the country of Chu."
He asked, and the queen begged without hesitation.
This is what the younger generation of the Zhang family deserves. She just wants to help them get it back.
The emperor's eyes were suddenly sharp. He thought that the queen was smart and would say that it was her duty to share the emperor's worries.
He never thought about rewarding the queen, let alone letting the descendants of the Zhang family return to the army.
His eyes swept back and forth between the Empress and Zhang Yongping. Just as he began to suspect that the father and daughter had conspired to regain military power, that inappropriate voice in his mind reappeared.
[How could the Queen be so stupid? Given the dog Emperor's suspicion and pettiness, if the young men of the Zhang family really went to the border, wouldn't he have found various reasons to get rid of them all?]
[The emperor has made it clear that he cannot tolerate the Zhang family, so why should she be so foolish? Even if she feels sorry for the people living on the border, she cannot harm her own family.]
[Ma Linyuan also has a son. He is quite fertile. He has eight or nine sons, including legitimate and illegitimate sons. If so many of them were thrown into Yucheng Pass, they would at least be able to fill up a hole in the city wall.]
[You are loyal to the king, but the king cannot tolerate you. Why bother?]
The contemptuous voice instantly changed the emperor's rejection that was about to come to his lips. He glanced at Lu Xinran who was lowering his head and complaining about him madly, and replied with a "OK".
The Queen clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides.
Fortunately, she knew that at this time Lu Xinran would not be able to help but stand up for her, and even if the emperor had doubts, he would still agree to her request.
Everything was just as she had imagined before returning to Beijing. All her goals were achieved, except for the last point.
"Your Majesty, the walls of Yucheng Pass were severely damaged. If they are not torn down and rebuilt, the border will be difficult to defend. I earnestly request Your Majesty to mobilize supplies to help Yucheng Pass repair the walls and resist foreign invaders."