"Excuse me, I don't know which sentence you meant?" Yang Yi Zhong asked quickly.
"I say...if the Jurchens cross the river and can't escape, I want you to end it for me." Zhao Jiu sneered in response.
"Yes... Your Majesty...but this is a different time." Yang Yi Zhong was very anxious.
"I know, this is a different time." Zhao Jiu said with a sigh. "So, the order I give you this time is the opposite of that time... If this Northern Expedition fails, I am ashamed to turn back, and you have to tie me up and take me back to Henan... Then do it again for another eight years! Do you understand?"
"I understand!" Yang Yizhong bowed his head and accepted the order, feeling relieved.
A night of silence ended the next morning. Emperor Zhao had long forgotten the unforgettable worries of the previous night. On the contrary, the emperor, who had just made up his mind to march north in the southeast, showed an extremely enthusiastic attitude towards the people of the southeast. He took a hundred reserve Hebei officials from the southeast, left Guo Zhongxun and his army behind, and only took a thousand or so imperial guards. He went into battle lightly and left Phoenix Mountain, where he had been stationed for almost a year, and headed north that day.
Because the number of people accompanying him was greatly reduced and the places along the way were sufficient to supply logistics, Emperor Zhao returned very quickly this time.
On the first day of July, just as Lü Benzhong could no longer resist and secretly revised Zhao Guanjia's poem "Departing to the War to Show His True Fame" and published it in the "Phoenix Weekly", the great poet Zhao Guanjia crossed the Yangtze River from Guazhou.
Arrived in Huaidian on July 15th.
On July 25, he once again left behind some of his subordinates and troops and rushed to Nanjing (now Shangqiu).
At this time, without waiting for the envoy from Tokyo to greet him, Yue Fei, who was stationed in the north, took the lead in publicly submitting a letter of greetings, and at the same time asked about the drought and floods in Liangzhe and the unrest in Fujian.
Emperor Zhao immediately responded publicly that the southeast was safe and asked whether the military equipment in Jingdong was appropriate.
After the envoys came and went, it was said that because of the autumn harvest, Emperor Zhao started from Nanjing on the first day of August, but he and Lu Yihao followed him slowly to Tokyo, and they traveled no more than 20 miles a day. At this time, the prime ministers of Tokyo and the generals of various places had already known about the previous interaction between Yue Fei and the emperor, and they also came to express their greetings, saying that the warehouses were sufficient, the roads were repaired, the weapons were sufficient, and the morale was high.
In the end, it was Li Qiong who officially said that sentence, which was "Please divide the troops to the left and right of Taihang Mountain to recover the homeland of the two rivers."
In response to this, Emperor Zhao continued to slowly return to the capital, but at the same time he publicly issued edicts to refute it continuously, telling all ministers and military commanders that important military and national affairs must not be divorced from reality or exaggerated without authorization.
At the same time, data from the Privy Council, the Imperial Camp, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of War, and the Ministry of Works were sent along the way, pointing out that in the current situation, only the roads and warehouses were properly repaired, and the rest, such as the 300,000 soldiers in the Imperial Camp were just full, and many of the new recruits were undertrained; armor and weapons were slightly short of the full quota, and the livestock were not fat and strong enough; among the allies, only the Khitan and Western Mongolia had publicly promised to send troops from Yinshan, and Japan was willing to send a samurai to accompany the emperor to express its position, while Eastern Mongolia had not made up its mind, and the Koreans were indecisive and refused to answer; another example was that the naval ships were not harmonious and were not enough to launch an independent battle; and the grain storage was not enough for one year's military use, and they had to wait until after the autumn harvest to check the data before they could feel at ease.
Immediately afterwards, the emperor publicly sent out envoys to commend the Minister of Works Hu Yin, the Minister of Revenue Lin Jingmo, the Imperial Camp Commander Wang Yan, the Imperial Camp Front Army Commander Yue Fei, and the Imperial Camp Central Army Commander Li Yanxian for their excellent preparations. He also criticized the Deputy Envoy of the Privy Council Chen Gui for insufficient military equipment, the Imperial Camp Rear Army Commander Wu Jie for his messy accounts, the Imperial Camp Right Army Commander Zhang Jun for doing nothing and failing to train his troops diligently, and the Imperial Camp Naval Army Commander Zhang Rong for fighting on the river in the previous summer, wasting military funds.
The journey was more than 260 miles, and it took Emperor Zhao 14 days to walk. Even Guo Zhongxun's troops behind him were caught up during this period and stationed directly in Qingcheng, south of Tokyo. Fan Zongyin, Yu Yunwen, Mei Li and others also gradually caught up... and all the memorials, replies, commendations and reprimands along the way were published in the court bulletin. People all over the world, not to mention the Song people, even the Jurchens and Goryeo people could see it clearly.
On August 14, the ninth year of Jianyan, Emperor Zhao once again returned to his loyal Tokyo City. However, after a year, he passed through the city without entering it, but went directly to the Yuetai Camp in the west of the city, and presided over the Mid-Autumn Festival on the second day of August.
After the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is time to hold the imperial examinations to select scholars.
This time, Emperor Zhao did enter the city. In the palace examination, he asked a question about how to appease the four routes of Hebei after the Northern Expedition... namely, Hebei East Route, Hebei West Route, Hedong Route, and Yanshan Route.
He even nominated Zhang Jiucheng, who was allowed to take part in the palace examination as an exception, as the top scorer.
Then, within a few days after the palace examination, the official stayed in the harem and stayed there all the time. It was said that he mostly enjoyed family happiness with his two concubines, princesses and princes.
But this kind of life did not last long. On the last day of August, the emperor held a public banquet in Gyeongbokgung Palace to invite the three queens to watch the new play "The Palace of Eternal Life". At the beginning of September, a large court meeting was held, and the government directly announced that there would be no limit on the Northern Expedition bonds, which would be sold simultaneously with the price of money, silk and grain. At the same time, twelve scholars including Lou Zhao, Zhang Tao and Wang Jin, and twelve secretaries including Zong Ying, Su Bai and Li Tao were sent to the various armies and departments of the imperial camp to serve as liaisons.
On the afternoon of that day, Emperor Zhao, who had only stayed in Tokyo for half a month, went out of the city together with the Hebei Grand Commander Lu Yihao, the Imperial Camp Commander Wang Yan and many close ministers who had already joined them, and began to patrol along the Yellow River as they did in previous winters.
This action made the Jurchen army in Hebei unable to bear it any longer. Under the command of the two military headquarters in Daming Prefecture and Longde Prefecture, tens of thousands of Jurchen troops began to dispatch and respond.
On both sides of the Yellow River, there was a moment of panic and every tree and grass looked like an enemy.
"Prime Minister Qin is from the south. What do you think, is the Zhao Song government just bluffing this time, or is it really going to send troops?"
In the Shangshutai of Yanjing, it was a clear autumn day with few clouds and no rain. However, as the King of Liao and the Grand Tutor and Prime Minister Wanyan Oben frowned and asked questions, Qin Hui could not help but shiver.
But I don’t know what I’m afraid of?
PS: I am very grateful to the new alliance leader Pan Xilaiya... I continue to wish everyone a happy new year.
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