Chapter 666: Drinking poison to quench thirst
On Zhou Xu's side, after placing Kong Daqian there, he directly ordered the patrol team, including Zhuo Ge and his men, to intensify their offensive.
Within two days, they discovered the enemy's garrison camp, forcing the enemy to retreat in a panic and flee back to Blackrock City.
At the same time, Yan Sheng...
Although Yan Sheng had issued an order to completely block the news about the great defeat suffered by the army on the front line.
But the truth cannot be hidden. The frontline troops retreated to Blackrock City in disgrace, and so many people were injured. How could they hide it? Soon, the news spread like wildfire.
At the same time, Yan Sheng also issued a conscription order to recruit 7,000 soldiers.
The combination of these two pieces of news was simply a nightmare for the common people who had not yet recovered from the War of Resistance against Japan.
After the news spread, the people who had some experience immediately took all the money in their homes and rushed to the nearest grain store.
When spring ploughing was affected earlier, many people were discussing whether this year's grain harvest would be affected and whether grain prices would rise. Now, with the news coming out, a rise in grain prices has almost become a foregone conclusion.
In fact, let alone an increase in food prices, if the trend continues, it will be a question whether ordinary people can buy food.
By the time they arrived at the grain shop, the outside of the shop was already crowded with people, even blocking the nearby roads.
After seeing this scene, even the dumbest person would have reacted.
As a result, more and more people began to rush to buy food, and in a short period of time, all the food in the surrounding grain stores was bought out.
This is not a good sign.
There is no food in the grain store, and people who want to buy food later cannot buy it. This will further brew panic and cause panic to collide further. Invisibly, this has formed a terrible vicious circle.
The information was quickly fed back to Yan Sheng, who looked unhappy when he heard the news.
The conscription order has already been issued, and he cannot withdraw the order at this time. This would be tantamount to shaking his prestige and slapping himself in the face.
"What about the grain harvested in the fall?"
Yan Sheng's idea at this moment was very simple. Now was the autumn harvest season. As long as the grain was distributed so that grain shops everywhere had grain to sell and the problem of food shortage in the market was solved, the panic of the people could be appeased to a great extent.
Faced with this question, an ordinary guard would definitely not be able to answer it, so he quickly went to find the relevant officials to confirm the situation. The final result was...
"Your Majesty, this war has affected the autumn harvest, and the first batch of grain has not yet been harvested."
The official's voice became softer and softer as he spoke, until he was almost silent at the end. Yan Sheng became even more annoyed and smashed the official's body with the teacup in his hand.
"I'll give you another week. If you still can't collect it after this week, I'll take your head! Get out!"
Following the shout of "Get lost", the frightened official immediately rolled and crawled away, running for his life.
Since this trick didn't work for the time being, Yan Sheng couldn't think of any other solution, so he could only utter...
"Notify local officials to stabilize the situation and calm the public. At this critical juncture, I will not allow any mistakes to be made!"
It was just a bunch of words, but it didn't say anything specific about what to do.
In other words, you guys figure it out on your own, I only look at the results.
Officials from all over the country received this order. What could they do in the face of this situation? Say something nice to the people? To be honest, they had been fighting non-stop for years, and the people had long lost trust in the government.
Even if the condition is temporarily appeased, the effect will only last for two or three days at most.
But will the food arrive in the next two or three days?
It is even a question whether the food can be harvested in the next week, let alone all of it.
In this situation, the officials could not think of any good solution, and their Emperor Qin Shi Huang only wanted to see the results and did not care about anything else.
With no other choice, in order to produce results as quickly as possible, many officials below faced heavy pressure and finally chose the simplest and most brutal method.
That is to send the city defense forces to start patrolling the streets.
The purpose is to deter and disperse the rioters.
Judging from the current situation, the effect is indeed there, but if the time is extended, this action is basically tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst.
Forced suppression will only lead to a bigger outbreak.
But how could the officials here care about this? They couldn't guarantee whether these rioters would cause more trouble in the future, but if they didn't quickly control the situation, according to the temperament of their Majesty the First Emperor, their heads would definitely be chopped off.
Faced with such a situation, do they have any choice?
Of course, I have to save my head first, and I can talk about the rest later! Looking at the latest report, Yan Sheng, who confirmed that the situation was under control, looked much better.
Unfortunately, before he could feel relieved, news came from the city gate that General Xie Liancheng had withdrawn with the reconnaissance troops.
According to preliminary observations, the reconnaissance team suffered heavy casualties.
"Pass on my order, and have General Jie Liancheng and his accompanying deputy general come to see me!"
At Yan Sheng's order, Jie Liancheng and his deputy general, who had just returned to Black Stone City, were taken to the City Lord's Mansion.
"Tell me, what's going on?!"
Not in the mood to waste time talking to them, Yan Sheng got straight to the point.
After hearing this, Xie Liancheng was not vague and immediately began to report in a formal manner.
"Your Majesty, the Centaur mercenaries on the other side are too troublesome. After nightfall, they frequently attacked and harassed us. We are no match for them at all. The location of the garrison camp was also quickly exposed. We were unable to resist and could only retreat to preserve our forces."
Listening to Xie Liancheng's report, Yan Sheng glanced at the deputy general standing beside him calmly.
Noticing Yan Sheng's gaze, the deputy general quickly nodded.
After confirmation, although Yan Sheng felt bad about the result, he couldn't get angry.
There was no way he wasn't aware of how difficult the Centaur mercenaries were.
According to his guess, the fact that some of the reconnaissance troops were able to come back alive this time was all thanks to the team leader Xie Liancheng.
If it were any other general, they would probably all be wiped out there.
However, what Yan Sheng didn't know was that in order to avoid being blamed, the deputy general he sent to monitor Jie Liancheng had already agreed on a story with Jie Liancheng before they entered the city.
After all, if the matter is to be discussed, it was he who first exposed his whereabouts when he was leading the team. If the responsibility is to be investigated, the general Jie Liancheng will at most be fined some salary, but as for him, a small deputy general, there is a high probability that he will lose his head.
Update is here, thanks to book friend 'Qingyun Tianxiao' for the reward!
(End of this chapter)
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