Emperor Jianzhang said the situation in the Northwest changed in the blink of an eye, telling Zhou Weizhao and the others to hurry and be extra careful. Before leaving, he specifically spoke with Zhou Weizhao in the imperial study for a full half hour before letting him out.
Song Chuyi saw his expression was somewhat complex and reached out to smooth his tightly furrowed brow. “What did Imperial Grandfather say to you?”
Zhou Weizhao held her hand, gripping it tightly. He got into the carriage and pulled her into his embrace. After a long while he said, “Imperial Grandfather said I chose a good wife.”
Emperor Jianzhang yawned in the imperial study. He did indeed think Song Chuyi was a good granddaughter-in-law, but heaven and earth could witness—his point was clearly that Zhou Weizhao needed to be ruthless when he needed to be ruthless. Song Chuyi was very good, but as emperor one absolutely couldn’t indulge in feminine charms.
Fortunately he didn’t know Zhou Weizhao understood his well-meaning intentions this way. The women of the inner palace had raised over three hundred thousand taels of silver. He himself had transferred another hundred thousand taels from the inner treasury—altogether there were four hundred thousand taels. To first buy some grain from the common people, it was still enough. He ordered this matter given to the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of War to handle together.
After Minister of Finance Zheng Sansi stepped down, the former Vice Minister of Finance Yuan Dan had filled the position. Though nearly sixty years old, his energy was excellent. He was very capable at work and could get along with everyone high and low. After hearing Emperor Jianzhang’s instructions, he discussed and consulted with Cen Biliang. First he allocated fifty thousand taels to the Ministry of War to make a batch of weapons, supplementing the Three Great Camps with quite a few good things. Then he allocated over a hundred thousand more taels and personally supervised his subordinates to go to Tongzhou and Jinzhou to collect grain.
Only after Tongzhou’s five great granaries—east, west, south, north, and central—were packed full could he finally breathe a sigh of relief. Now that all five great granaries were full, if Zijing Pass truly couldn’t be defended and the capital was besieged, relying on this grain would be enough to support everyone in the capital for more than half a year.
He had truly handled this assignment beautifully. Emperor Jianzhang was greatly pleased and publicly praised him.
Those who identified problems and thought of ways to solve them were on the right path. Like the previous Zheng Sansi—although he too was thinking of the court, he only knew how to evade and didn’t think of any solutions at all. What kind of ability was that? He only knew how to cause trouble for others.
Even Chief Minister Chang and Song Chengru couldn’t help but say Yuan Dan had handled this matter well. After this matter was settled, this acting minister would probably become a real minister.
Having resolved the capital’s grain problem, Emperor Jianzhang finally relieved himself of one worry. His haggard appearance from many days finally became spirited and radiant. He specifically instructed Yuan Dan to keep some silver aside—he wasn’t simply sending Zhou Weizhao to Yangzhou to collect grain. Since they were already doing it, naturally they couldn’t just cast nets in one place. They had to cast more nets to catch fish widely. Once these fish could truly be caught, immediately mobilizing troops northward could be put into action.
The Prince of Zhennan, who still didn’t know the court was planning to mobilize troops, wiped his pitch-black face. His two dark eyes only stared at the city gate not far away glowing with faint light.
“Quite a few people guarding.” The Prince of Zhennan lowered his voice and turned back to look at Marquis Dingyuan behind him. “Heavily guarded—I’m afraid Prince Gong and the others have already issued an alert. All along this road, it’s getting harder and harder for us.”
After passing Yangquan, through Xining, the road all the way to Suzhou became increasingly difficult to traverse. Now this Changning before their eyes was extremely stubborn. They’d already attacked several times, never gaining any advantage each time. The enemy had dug trenches early, prepared boiling oil, and even had cannonballs. Once they went up, they died in batches. This killing power was truly alarming.
Marquis Dingyuan’s expression also didn’t look good. No matter how formidable he was, he was still flesh and blood in the end. When cannonballs were thrown over, no matter your peerless martial arts, you still wouldn’t fare well. Before, they’d heard Prince Gong was replicating firearms. Now it seemed this was indeed true. He’d even specifically placed firearms in this obscure small county town. It probably wasn’t to guard against them, but to completely block Cui Shaoting’s path. If Cui Shaoting truly had the ability to come from Suzhou, upon arriving here he would be blasted into a sieve.
“This can’t continue.” Marquis Dingyuan looked at the sky and sighed. “They are extremely strict here and have someone supervising the battle. If we delay any longer, I’m afraid Wu Qianli will catch up from behind—then we’ll be attacked from front and rear.”
The Prince of Zhennan also knew this principle, but there was really no good solution now. He spat on the ground, made a gesture, and took advantage of the night to return to camp.
The moment his front foot entered the tent, before he’d even had time to sit down and rest for a bit or drink some water, Han Yang was already calling out outside the tent.
He’d led scouts out to gather intelligence—to return so quickly already! The two exchanged glances and let him in.
Han Yang rushed in hurriedly. Not a trace of the shock and anger from before leaving remained on his face. He smiled so broadly his two dark eyes were shining. “Something happened, something happened!”
Something happened and he was this happy?! The Prince of Zhennan was somewhat speechless. Marquis Dingyuan had already beaten him to it and coughed. “What happened? Speak properly!”
After spending so much time together, they’d truly developed a bond through adversity. Han Yang and Han Yu were both completely unlike what Han Zhengqing would produce. Both had loyalty when loyalty was needed, intelligence when intelligence was needed. Most rare was they actually had backbone and weren’t afraid of hardship. Marquis Dingyuan had quite a bit of affection for them and had gradually come to regard them as his own juniors.
Han Yang had also become accustomed to being reprimanded. Anyway, his face was thick—he didn’t consider Marquis Dingyuan’s scolding to be scolding at all. Excitedly gesticulating, he said, “Guess what? Marquis Jinxiang led people from Jingzhou straight for Guyuan, wanting to destroy Commander Cui’s base…” He thought about it and felt the word “base” wasn’t very appropriate, but couldn’t think of the right word for the moment. Scratching his head, he continued, “It almost succeeded—north of Guyuan is Guangning Guard! If attacked from both sides, no matter how capable Commander Cui is, he could only take the loss and submit. Before, it was indeed fought very hard—Commander Cui is in Suzhou, and if Guyuan couldn’t hold out, wouldn’t he have to go support them? But if he went to support them, then Qingzhou Prefecture’s forces were also watching like tigers eyeing prey, ready to strike. For a time he was being beaten from all sides, almost without ability to fight back…”
The Prince of Zhennan listened with heavy eyes. This move of Han Zhengqing’s was indeed vicious to the extreme—making a feint to the east while attacking in the west, besieging Wei to rescue Zhao. This was almost using all thirty-six stratagems.
No matter how capable Cui Shaoting was, he couldn’t withstand being beaten like this.
It was Marquis Dingyuan who reacted and immediately asked, “Then you said there’s good news? What exactly is the good news? Stop keeping us in suspense and speak honestly!”
Han Yang then truly didn’t dare keep them in suspense. With a sneaky grin on his face, he said, “You two might not even believe this when I say it—supposedly Prince Gong, Prince Gong somehow, even though Guyuan was almost captured, he suddenly ordered Wu Feng to withdraw troops!”
Withdraw troops?!
Could Prince Gong’s brain be broken? At a time when he had every advantage, when he could clearly eliminate this mortal enemy Cui Shaoting, he ordered a withdrawal?!