Zhao Jiu immediately turned to Han Xiaozhou and said, "Your mother should be given the title of Lady Rongguo! Get up quickly!"
Han Xiaozhou became more and more grateful, and then he stood up. Zhao Jiu gave him some kind instructions and asked him to go back to his residence in Tokyo to rest first. He would go north with the envoys from the Kingdom of Jin when he received the order to welcome the envoy tomorrow.
Just like that, watching Han Xiaozhou come and go, Emperor Zhao sat there for a full quarter of an hour before he looked at Lu Hao who was still standing beside him and asked, "Mr. Lu, I heard that you two are relatives?"
"Yes." Lu Haowen came back to his senses and looked at him carefully. "Han Dayin's grandmother is my aunt..."
"So, there is no difference in generation between us, the emperor and his subjects..."
Zhao Jiu muttered something, but the people around him pretended not to hear.
After a short pause, Emperor Zhao looked around and saw that besides a few guards, there were only Scholar Xiaolin and Lan Gui around. He then asked Lu Hao directly, "Mr. Lu, do you think your relative is pretending to be stupid?"
Lu Haowen was slightly stunned, then slowly shook his head, but it was unclear whether he agreed or disagreed, or maybe he just couldn't tell.
Zhao Jiu sighed, but spoke his true feelings: "I will not hide it from you, Prime Minister Lu. Ever since Wanyan Wushu sent me the letter, I felt that something was not right. Han Xiaozhou asked to go north and it arrived at the same time as Wushu's letter. It was too coincidental..."
Lü Haowen had no choice but to bite the bullet and speak earnestly: "Your Majesty, Han Xiao has been favored by the country for generations, and it is impossible for him to collude with foreign countries."
Zhao Jiu frowned for a moment.
"Your Majesty..." Scholar Xiao Lin on the other side also came to his senses, but he lowered his head and spoke carefully. "Han Dayin's father passed away early, so it's hard to say, but when his grandfather, Duke Yiguo (Han Zhongyan), was the prime minister, he was known as a sincere gentleman... I think Han Xiaozhou is very similar to his grandfather."
"Zhunzhunjunzi" means a useless and incompetent person, which is consistent with Han Xiaozhou's performance today.
However, Zhao Jiu glanced at the somewhat embarrassed Lu Haowen, and then slowly shook his head: "In fact, I didn't doubt him, because if you think about it carefully, Han Xiaozhou is in Jiangzhou, how can he communicate with the north across thousands of miles and the Yellow River? So I thought from the beginning that Han Xiaozhou's request to go north must be because people from top to bottom think that the north and the south are stable and can resume exchanges. But Wanyan Wushu's move at this time seems to be too much to cater to our people's hearts."
Lin Jingmo seemed to be thinking about something, and then fell silent again.
Lu Haowen was helpless and could only face the emperor with a serious expression: "What do you think is going on?"
"I naturally thought that Wanyan Wushu had other intentions..." Zhao Jiu said calmly. "To be honest with you, Mr. Lu, I called you here today not only to accompany me to meet Han Xiaozhou, but I actually wanted to tell you that I have always suspected that the Jin Kingdom's behavior this time was to use the Queen Mother Xuanhe to confuse me and cater to the hearts of the people in the Song Dynasty to cover up something! Han Xiaozhou will leave tomorrow, so I am telling you this."
Lu Haowen sighed slightly, but then asked in return: "May I ask the sir, what about that?"
Zhao Jiu also sighed... As Lu Haowen said, so what?
In fact, Zhao Jiu had already relaxed, but Wanyan Wushu's deliberate paralysis allowed him to glimpse something. However, even though he glimpsed it, he didn't know how to respond.
This is the danger of not having the military initiative. Although there is already suspicion, there is no way to prove anything. You can only passively wait for the situation to unfold. These days, he thought about it for a long time, but found that he couldn't even dispatch troops in advance to support, because all the troops were doing their own jobs. Once they moved away, they would reveal a big gap. Han Shizhong was in Caizhou, which was already the best support position.
Moreover, reason told him that guessing was just guessing, and forcing the soldiers and civilians to be vigilant would only lead to exhaustion, which would make the situation even worse when the Jin army really came. The Jin army might even not come, which would make him lose his prestige in vain. Therefore, he could not even speak openly to the officers in the letter... He just asked them to defend carefully and not to relax their vigilance just because summer was coming.
"Well." After thinking for a while, seeing Feng Yi and Feng Erguan peeking from a distance, Zhao Jiu stood up and said goodbye to Lu Haowen. "If the enemy comes, we will stop him. If the water comes, we will block it. Please leave, Mr. Lu. I have something else to do..."
Lu Haowen said goodbye immediately.
However, just after Lu Haowen turned around and walked four or five steps, Zhao Jiu looked at something on the table in the pavilion, and his heart moved slightly, but he stood up and called to the other party: "Sir, please stay."
Lu Haowen looked back in surprise.
"This is a gift for Prime Minister Lu." Under the silent gaze of Scholar Kobayashi, Zhao Jiu folded a page of the "New History of the Five Dynasties" that he had been reading for half a day. Then he walked out of the pavilion with the book in his hands and handed it to Lu Haowen.
Lu Haowen didn't understand what was going on, but he still bowed to thank him. Then, holding the book in both hands, he left the harem accompanied by Lan Gui.
When the prime minister and the chief escort of the Ministry of Internal Affairs turned a corner, they saw Feng Yiyin standing by the road and hurriedly bowing and greeting them... Lu Haowen felt that the latter looked familiar, so he nodded slightly and walked over. When he turned another corner, he remembered that it was Pan Yongshou, the imperial physician and the father of Concubine Pan.
This incident caused some ripples in Lu Xianggong's heart.
Let’s not talk about how Lu Haowen went back to study. It was a hot day in the palace, and Zhao Jiu went to Concubine Pan’s place to rest that night as usual... Since he came back, he has stayed here most of the time, and today is no exception.
But on this day, when I was sleeping at three o'clock in the morning, I suddenly heard Lan Gui and Yang Yizhong calling me through the door.
Zhao Jiu suddenly woke up and came out directly with his clothes on, but he didn't show any panic at all: "But the Jin people finally moved?"
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!
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