late at night.

Zhang Yuanqing sat cross-legged on the observation deck outside the alchemy room, with the Daluo star plate cast in black iron and painted with silver paint on his knees. The stars were rotating and changing constantly, like the program code for how the world was running, flashing through his mind over and over again.

Every change represents a direction of the future. In the perception of the star officials, the past is eternal and unchanging, the present is happening, and the future is full of uncertainty.

There are countless possibilities in the future. A change in a detail or a mistake in an idea will change the direction of the future.

Among them, peddlers and hawkers are the least valuable. The behavior of ordinary people cannot affect the future trend. The thoughts and ideas of those in high positions are crucial.

Therefore, the star official needs to use each chess piece to make the good future direction cooperate with his own expectations.

The core of the game between star officials lies in the placement of chess pieces. Whoever has more chess pieces will be the winner.

Of course, in addition to chess pieces, the general trend is also very important. The general trend of the world is rolling forward, and the star officials also need to play chess according to the general trend of the world. Astrology is used to observe the general trend of the world.

If you forcibly reverse the trend, even the most powerful star official will end up dead or alive.

The Southern Dynasty is now on the verge of destruction, with corrupt officials running rampant in the court, the treasury is empty, and the Northern Dynasty's army is approaching.

From the overall situation, Zhang Yuanqing was at a disadvantage, but fortunately, Linxia City was not broken and the Southern Dynasty still survived.

"The old thief claims to be able to calculate all the mysteries of heaven, so his astrology skills should be pretty good. I have the Daluo Star Plate, which can at most make me equal to him, but my advantage is that I am protected by dragon energy, and my movements are inherently secretive."

"Some confidential operations must not be done by friends alone. They must be operated by Yin corpses, or by characters of high rank who have a close causal relationship with the national master, such as Gang Leader Duan." Zhang Yuanqing thought to himself.

At this moment, he heard a faint roar in his ears. It was the sound of resentful spirits and corpses, and only the night-wandering gods could hear it.

Zhang Yuanqing's mind was startled, the stars in front of him shattered, and he was forced to stop stargazing, and goose bumps appeared on his body.

"Master, what are you doing?" He turned his head to look at the source of the sound and narrowed his eyes. This guy was indeed planning a big move.

Outside the capital, ragged refugees gathered in groups of three or four, sitting hunched over on both sides of the official road.

Shivering in the thin frost in the early morning, the weather is getting colder and colder. If the cold in the north is strong and overbearing, then the damp cold in the south is like a knife that penetrates the bones.

Before you die, you can experience the terrible pain of having your flesh cut by a blunt knife and eaten raw, until your body slowly passes away.

There were thousands of refugees outside the city, but the imperial court did not allow them to enter the city, let alone care about them.

After fleeing south and losing their homes, the only way to make a living is the capital.

They struggle to survive on the thin porridge donated by the imperial court, and can only survive one day at a time. When the cold winter comes, the children and the elderly among these refugees will die first. The younger ones may be able to survive the cruel winter, but that does not mean they will be helped.

After the cold winter, there are still the iron cavalry and swords of the Northern Dynasty.

Despair, numbness and pain enveloped the refugees outside the city. As the morning light shone through the first floor, the city gate slowly opened.

The refugees outside the city looked towards the city gate, and hope lit up in their dark and numb eyes. The relief porridge from the court would be delivered in the early morning. This was their only meal of the day.

After this meal they would have the energy to dig up tree roots in the forest and dig up insects in the ground.

Amidst a pair of attentive gazes, a flatbed cart drove out of the city gate. On the cart were four large wooden barrels, and white steam was emitting from the gaps in the barrel lids.

The sound of "gulp" swallowing saliva continued to be heard, and the refugees stood up one after another. Those who were still asleep were roughly woken up by their companions and family members.

These refugees wandering in the wilderness like zombies swarmed towards the city gate.

At this time, another flatbed carriage drove out behind the flatbed carriage, followed by the second, third, and fourth.

At the back, more than a hundred armored and armed city defense soldiers came out.

The refugees, like locusts, stopped in their tracks one after another. There were too many of them. There were not ten carriages for them, but the usual three carriages filled with clear porridge. Each person could only get half a bowl, and there were not so many city defense troops to maintain order.

Looking at the continuous steam coming out of the wooden barrel and smelling the rich aroma of porridge, the sound of swallowing saliva became louder.

During this time, there were cries of children urging their parents to get food, but the pale-faced father and the skinny mother shrank back and dared not step forward.

At this time, the ten carriages did not continue to move forward after leaving the city, but turned to the porridge stalls under the city wall. A general on horseback, Li Laiyuanlai, stepped forward with his horse's belly clattering and said loudly to the refugees: "Your Majesty understands the people's feelings and knows your suffering. You have opened the warehouses to provide disaster relief and formulated new laws. From now on, the porridge in the porridge factory will be of a certain thickness. Chopsticks will float up and people's heads will fall down."

With a loud noise, thousands of refugees rushed towards the porridge shed. On the observation deck outside the Tianji Tower, the sun was rising slowly in the east.

Zhang Yuanqing leaned over the railing and looked into the distance. The prosperous capital was still sleeping, the outlines of the buildings were blurry, and the towering city walls in the distance isolated thousands of refugees outside the city.

A wall separates heaven and hell.

After standing there for a long time, a ray of golden light penetrated the wall and transformed into a state teacher with a sage-like demeanor and fluttering sleeves.

"Master, the thousands of refugees outside the city are all citizens of the Southern Dynasty, my people."

Zhang Yuanqing held the railing and said with a smile: "It is my duty to save the people from danger."

The Imperial Master looked at the city gate with a solemn expression on his face. He counted on his fingers for a few seconds and said coldly: "Your Majesty, the ruler of a country, is willing to commit such a petty theft!"

"No." Zhang Yuanqing raised his head and smiled, "All the land under heaven belongs to the king, and all the people are his subjects. Why can't we use our own grain to help the victims? Oh, by the way, the national teacher can also notify Zheng Wenhan to investigate the theft of grain from the rice merchants in the city. It's just that when this document was submitted, didn't the national teacher take this step into account for some time?"

As Zhang Yuanqing expected, because he put the companion spirit moon into the gang warehouse last night and then notified Sun Miaomiao to use it, after Sun Miaomiao performed the night tour, it was equivalent to having secret protection.

The Imperial Master did not answer. The middle-aged Taoist priest outside the alchemy room turned into starlight and disappeared when he moved his lips.

Not long after, another group of city defense troops rushed to the city gate, drove out the refugees, and surrounded the porridge shed, belonging to different groups.

After the two groups of city defense troops in the military camp drew their swords and confronted each other, the city defense army general said loudly, "Last night, many rice shops in the city had their food stolen. The Ministry of Justice suspects that the food from the porridge factory is not legitimate. We will take all the porridge away for investigation. If you dare to stop Miao Xing, it is tantamount to treason."

"Ah, bullshit." The leader of the city defense army guarding the porridge shed cursed.

"The Ministry of Justice hasn't even started yet, and the Minister of Justice told you in a dream that the grain in the rice shop was stolen?"

There was laughter everywhere, and the two groups of city defense troops did not fight each other, but instead criticized and cursed each other's ancestors, which was full of motherly content.

The stalemate lasted for half an hour, and suddenly a large number of refugees in tattered clothes poured out of the city, jostling each other and blending into the refugee group.

"Brothers, let's go back to this matter." The general of the city defense army who came to stop the incident laughed, retracted his knife, and left with dozens of his subordinates.

Zhang Yuanqing, who was outside the city and saw this scene through his spirit servant, was startled and immediately understood the Imperial Master's plan.

The obstruction of the city defense army was just a delaying measure and a sleight of hand, the purpose of which was to prepare for the gathering of manpower. The national teacher asked his disciples to gather a group of people in the city, disguising them as refugees to obstruct the normal distribution of porridge in the porridge factory.

As a result, the number of refugees who can actually get the porridge will be sharply reduced, and the effectiveness of Zhang Yuanqing's plan to win the hearts of the people by opening warehouses to provide disaster relief will be greatly reduced.

The incident happened suddenly and they were caught off guard. Maybe there will be a new way to resolve it tomorrow. The spirit servant will have enough time to investigate the grain theft case while watching Zheng Wenhan.

"Ginger is always wiser with age." Zhang Yuanqing exclaimed.

The Imperial Master said calmly: "Your Majesty, you may continue to make your move."

Zhang Yuanqing's face straightened and he sighed, "Master, do you know the difference between refugees and civilians?"

The Imperial Master replied expressionlessly: “There is no difference!

"Then you watch carefully." Zhang Yuanqing said.

The level 4 spirit servant outside the city rolled up a gloomy wind and crashed into the body of the city defense general. The general's pupils instantly dimmed, and then recovered as before. He sheathed his sword, grabbed a handful of sand from the ground and threw it into the porridge, shouting, "Why don't you just do what I say?"

The subordinates followed suit. Although they felt sad that such good porridge was wasted, they did not dare to disobey the order from their superior and mixed sand into the porridge.

Zhang Yuanqing manipulated the general and shouted, "Come here to get the porridge."

The refugees rushed up with a rush, some of them stopped where they were, looking confused, and many even turned around and left.

On the observation deck, Zhang Yuanqing looked sideways. "They just want to survive, Imperial Master."

The Imperial Master remained silent, his body transformed into a streak of golden light and left the alchemy room.

"This is the advantage of modern people's information storage," Zhang Yuanqing breathed a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, the civilians who were pouring out of the city just wanted to take advantage of the situation and get a bite of free thick porridge, so they left the city under the instigation of the Taoist priests of Tianji Tower.

If Zhang Yuanqing was determined to cause trouble and took the porridge and then threw it away, his plan would still be difficult to succeed.

Well, this won't happen. The national teacher is a great white moonlight in the hearts of the people. If such an order is issued to the people, it will damage his reputation and the loss will outweigh the gain!

Zhang Yuanqing turned around and went into the alchemy room to start making tea. He did not get complacent with his temporary victory. Although winning the hearts of the people was important, serving porridge once was only one of the steps to "win the hearts of the people" and could not influence the overall situation.

Moreover, no matter how much support you gain from the people, it will be in vain if you cannot weaken the enemy.

Zhang Yuanqing's real plan, in the final analysis, can be summed up in five words: Capture the leader first.

He stabilized Zheng Han because he wanted to launch an operation to destroy Zheng at the right time and eliminate all the core members of the Zheng family. In this way, both the Imperial City Bureau and the City Defense Army would naturally turn against him.

But the current strength is not enough to destroy the Zheng family.

In the Yang Mansion, the Queen's boudoir, the corpse Zhang Yuanqing opened his eyes again and saw Guan Ya sitting in front of the desk in the outer room, holding a brush and writing not very skillfully.

"How is the investigation into the Shenrui Army's case going?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

Guan Ya put down her brush and looked over, saying, "I'm analyzing it. Since you're here, let's discuss it together."

Zhang Yuanqing walked over as he was told and asked, "Where are the others?"

Guan Ya said: "I'm going to do the mission."

Yesterday, Zhang Yuanqing asked Yang Zheng to draft a notice and post it in the inner city. The content was about conferring titles on Lady Ya and Concubine Chu, and Concubine Wan as concubines.

It was publicized that the three of them risked their lives to save the emperor and were loyal and brave. The camps of the three people changed accordingly and new side and main quests were opened to lift the seal and restore her level.

I have been working on the task since yesterday.

"Where is the Palace Master?" Zhang Yuanqing asked.

"He ran to Linxia." Guan Ya said.

"Fu Qingyang sent me military intelligence. The Northern Dynasty has been attacking Linxia these past two days. Her defenders have suffered heavy casualties, including Fu Qingyang. The team members are constantly injured. The resources are exhausted and they are in urgent need of life source liquid. We don't have much life source liquid left. If we need to deal with the danger in the capital, we can only let the Palace Master go there.

Zhang Yuanqing took a breath of cold air.

"Linxia has Lingdiao and Xiahou Aotian, but we are still short of Life Source Fluid. The severity of the situation on the front line is beyond our imagination. I'm afraid Fu Qingyang won't be able to hold on for half a month, so we have to hurry up."

"Tell me about the dangers of the Shenrui Army!" He had a heavier task on his shoulders.