Within Xinqi City, Zhang Yun received a Hawk Messenger letter from Su Rong.
He opened the letter and sighed after reading it, passing it to Cui Xingzhi standing by his side. "Brother Xingzhi, you and Brother Ning Ze must return to the Royal Capital."
Cui Xingzhi took the letter with confusion, only to gasp in shock after reading it. "The situation within the Imperial Court... is it this dire?"
Zhang Yun thought about it and wasn’t surprised. "The Nangong Family held power for several generations, its roots run deeply, hard to imagine that once the rebellion started, almost every place under the Nangong Family’s influence collapsed completely. Now that the Nangong Family has withdrawn from Dawei, in many areas, isn’t everything paralyzed?"
Regretfully, he said: "The Princess must be suffering from this headache. Otherwise, the planned personnel would have been arranged, and wouldn’t let you and Brother Ning Ze immediately return to the Royal Capital upon receiving the letter."
Cui Xingzhi replied, "I’ll go find Brother Ning now."
Zhang Yun nodded, "It’s best to depart today."
Despite the day being late, it was still better to leave a day early.
Cui Xingzhi had the same plan, "What Brother Zhang Yun said is not wrong."
He turned around to find Ning Ze.
Ning Ze was chatting with Zhang Mao, guessing that the Princess should have already returned to the Royal Capital. They assumed that in just a few days, the news or announcement would spread within the court that the Princess was about to ascend the throne. He hadn’t expected the issue of Su Rong being reluctant to have the Nanchu King abdicate, letting her ascend in advance.
Ning Ze also sighed, "Alas, I wonder if we can make it to the Princess’s coronation ceremony when we return to the Royal Capital. Dawei’s actions are too slow, I wonder if we can finish everything in a month."
"That might be tough," Zhang Mao felt uncertain, "Even if Dawei delivers all our spoils of war, we still have a lot to do after taking over. At the very least, we have to strengthen these newly acquired cities of Dawei. We can’t allow any trouble, otherwise, wouldn’t all our efforts be in vain?"
"Exactly." Ning Ze estimated that their return to the Royal Capital might take three to four months at the earliest. By then, it would not only be warm spring, but perhaps already summer.
While the two were chatting, they saw Cui Xingzhi rushing over. Ning Ze turned his head and asked, "Brother Xingzhi, what has happened to make you so anxious?"
Cui Xingzhi directly handed the letter to Ning Ze, "The Princess sent a letter, asking the two of us to return to the Royal Capital immediately upon receiving it."
"Ah?" Ning Ze was just considering when to return, but didn’t expect to be called back to the Royal Capital so quickly.
He took the letter and quickly read it, utterly shocked, "Is the Ministry of Housing and the court so in need of people?"
Cui Xingzhi nodded, "The rebellion of the Nangong Family and the Liu’an Prince implicates nearly half of Nanchu. The court being short-staffed is not surprising."
"No, I mean, how can they be lacking to this extent?" Ning Ze found it hard to believe, "Look at the date on this letter: the third quarter of the night, did the Princess stay up...Princess? She hasn’t ascended yet and became a Princess?"
His tone sharply turned, full of shock.
"Yes, the sister-in-law didn’t ascend. Your Majesty has appointed her as Princess," Cui Xingzhi wasn’t sure about the details, but assumed it had something to do with Su Rong, "Anyway, we have to leave as soon as possible. The Princess wants us to go back. We’ll leave first and talk later."
"Right, let’s go, let’s go." Ning Ze returned the letter to him, "I’ll go and pack up right now."
"We’ll set off half an hour from now." Cui Xingzhi dropped this remark, realized there were some matters he still needed to hand over to Zhang Yun, and quickly turned back to find him.
Upon seeing Zhang Yun, Cui Xingzhi said, "Brother Zhang Yun, I’m leaving half of my guards with you. After all, your men were greatly reduced when escorting the King with my cousin. If Dawei has any regrets and causes trouble, you can’t take care of it without people."
Zhang Yun didn’t hesitate, "Thank you, Brother Xingzhi."
After discussing other matters with Zhang Yun, who nodded in agreement, Cui Xingzhi hurried back to pack up after wrapping things up. Half an hour later, he and Ning Ze promptly left Xinqi City on fast horses, leading their men.
Zhang Mao came to Zhang Yun after seeing off Ning Ze, "Third Brother, the court is short of people, and now that Brother Xingzhi and Brother Ning have also left, we still have many tasks to follow up with. Shouldn’t we also look for and cultivate more people around us? Otherwise, it’s really inconvenient."
Zhang Yun replied: "We can send my man Lang Ying and your Zhao Li to select some orphans and train a group of people. As for the people around us, Brother Xingzhi left half of his men for me to use temporarily. Tomorrow, you’ll have to work hard, Brother Mao, to promote some potentials from the army for cultivation. That should suffice for now!"
Zhang Mao nodded, "We have no other choice."
Scouting and training for secret guards is not a day’s work. Besides, all their people have been killed. Not to mention their people, even most of those around the Princess and Lord Thursday were gone. Now without the war urgency, they aren’t rushing, but they can’t guarantee that Dawei, after suffering such a loss, won’t cause trouble secretly. Their lives are now precious, and they need to protect themselves well. Otherwise, if something happens and chaos arises, it will only trouble the Princess.
Zhang Yun rubbed his forehead. He supposed it could be worse. He was also amused, thinking about the ones who must be suffering from the headache: the Princess and her husband.
Zhang Mao was baffled when he saw Zhang Yun’s laugh, "Third brother, what are you laughing at?"
"I was thinking about the Princess, who hates trouble the most, must be suffering from a headache now, as would her husband. I can imagine them being quite irritable." Zhang Yun thought those two must be quite frustrated.
Zhang Mao seemed to realize something and sighed, "Right, Lord Thursday will be the Princess’s husband."
He also saw that letter. Su Rong didn’t just ask Cui Xingzhi and Ning Ze to return, but also briefly described the situation in the Capital City at the beginning of the letter. Especially telling them that they should address Zhou Gu as the Princess’s husband, officially.
The Hawk Messenger letter is generally concise to prevent the hawk from tiring. But the Princess still emphasized this point. Zhang Mao thought that it probably wasn’t the Princess’s idea to write this but Zhou Gu who must have been by her side when she wrote the letter. He definitely knew that the news wouldn’t reach the frontier quickly and wanted them to know his status in advance.
Zhang Yun nodded, "Yes, indeed, he is the Princess’s husband."
He himself had never thought that he and the Princess’s husband would once escort the King, fought battles in all directions, and almost set foot in the entire Nanchu. Looking back now, it was fortunate just to be alive. The one who now wore the title of Princess’s husband in the Capital City was exasperated by the mess in the Ministry of Housing, while he was overwhelmed by the handover task with Dawei.
Thinking back to a few months ago, they were caught between two fires, everything was like a dream.
It was much better to live in the present than back then when their lives were constantly in danger. Maybe he should write a letter to him, give him some advice, in case he gets so grumpy that he doesn’t want to be the Princess’s husband anymore and runs back to Daliang.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
