Fanyang City, as the largest fortified city in Hebei Province, has always been the foundation of the pseudo-Yan, even when An Lushan set the capital Luoyang, he never gave up the operation here, and since the death of An Lushan, it has become increasingly bleak. After Shi Chaoqing, the acting king, replaced the crown prince as the superintendent, the sky over this big city was shrouded in layers of ominous clouds.

As one of the largest cities, there are many houses along the official road outside Fanyang City, and at this time they have been caught in a sea of fire, many people are homeless, huddled by the ditch outside the city gate, pleading with the defenders of the city, hoping that the defenders will lower the drawbridge, open the city gate and let them take refuge in the city.

However, the defenders were indifferent to the cries and cries of the people, and the crossbow arrows were fired, and the people had nowhere to dodge but to jump into the deep trench in front of them.

The army that attacked Fanyang City did not have an obvious banner, but everyone in the defenders knew that it must be the prince's men. The crown prince was originally stationed in Yecheng to deal with an attack that the Tang Dynasty might launch at any time, but after the beginning of spring, he accepted another task, which was to provide relief to the victims.

However, Shi Siming, who ascended the throne and became emperor, did not think that Shi Chaoyi's son had enough ability to help the victims, so he took the forbidden army south half a month ago and inspected along the way.

Now the peaceful days are getting farther and farther away from the people of Fanyang, after An Lushan died, almost all the strong men in every family were conscripted and sent to death in front of the battle, since last year Shi Siming ascended the throne and became the emperor, the situation not only did not improve, but became more and more serious.

At the beginning of spring, an edict was issued by the imperial court, and all men over the age of fifteen and under the age of sixty-five were to be called up and go into battle to kill the enemy.

For this reason, many people would rather leave their homes and flee in all directions in order to avoid conscription, but even so, the women who stayed behind did not escape the catastrophe, although the Yan army did not burn and kill their own people, but in the case of extreme lack of manpower, they still recruited a large number of women to help supply military supplies, or even build city defenses.

The court treats the people like pigs and dogs, and the people complain but have nowhere to go, and at the last moment of this kind of internal and external troubles, the cruel and violent prince Shi Chaoyi actually killed each other with the benevolent Shi Chaoqing brothers, and his own family often beat his own family members more ruthlessly than he treated the enemy.

Shi Chaoqing was blinded by his brother's surprise attack, although the people around him persuaded him more than once to warn him of the cruel and murderous brother, but the two are the same mother, how could it be the son of man who let him kill his brother?

However, it is a pity that the change came very suddenly, and Fan Yangcheng was almost lost under the sneak attack, but fortunately, the defenders were still alert and closed the city gate as soon as possible, so as to avoid the disaster of killing.

Now Shi Chaoqing has no master, and he can't help but sigh:

"What can I do about this? What should I do? Rumors say that my father has been killed, is it all the crown prince's doing?"

"Don't worry about the prison country, Your Majesty is wise and powerful, how could he be killed? This must be a lie made up by the prince in order to disturb the morale of the army!"

It was Zhou Zhi, a servant of the Acting Palace, who had always persuaded the Acting King not to be kind to women, and to establish his position before the accident. Originally, Shi Siming took the acting king as the prison of the country, which was a good sign, and a cadre of officials who followed the acting king was also planning intensively, so that Shi Siming, who had always disliked the prince, would kill the prince. Shi Siming's visit to the south was a great opportunity, but who would have thought that this excellent opportunity could turn into a disaster.

Now, Shi Siming doesn't know whether he is alive or dead, and the prince's men and horses have already hit Fan Yang City, although now only a small group of men and horses cannot pose a threat to Fan Yang City for the time being, but if the prince intends to usurp the throne, he is bound to lead a large group of men and horses to besiege Fan Yang.

Zhou Zhi's heart was already cold, if Shi Siming was still alive, how could he allow Shi Chaoyi to act so reckless......ly?

As a result, he didn't want to think about it anymore, but he had to pretend to be strong, so that Shi Chaoqing had enough confidence to deal with the situation.

"Your Highness's top priority is to recall the men and horses of the military towns outside Fanyang City, one is to enrich Fanyang's defense, and the other is to prevent these military formations from being broken by Shi Chaoyi and included in the bag, at that time, it will be extremely unfavorable to the prison country!"

Under Zhou Zhi's encouragement, Shi Chaoqing's mood gradually calmed down, and muttered:

"Mr. Zhou is right, he must not mess with himself at this time, otherwise how can he be worthy of his father's trust?

Suddenly, Zhou Zhi said sharply:

"Once you have seen the determination, you must act decisively, and the first urgent task is to kill Zhang Tongru!"

Zhang Tongru once followed Sun Xiaozhe to invade Guanzhong, and fled back to Luoyang alone after the defeat, and was not executed by An Lushan under the protection of Shi Siming. This person has been Shi Chaoyi's general since An Lushan's death, and now he is leading the troops in Fanyang City, and in order to prevent accidents, he is categorically unable to keep him.

Shi Chaoqing said:

"Zhang Tongru came to see me yesterday, and his words were quite humble and friendly, he, he won't be ......"

Zhou Zhi saw that the acting king hesitated, so he hated and stomped his feet.

Zhang Tongru is Shi Chaoyi's subordinate general, isn't this reason enough to kill him? If he launches a mutiny and joins forces with the rebellious army outside, then it will be too late for the prison to regret it, and it will be difficult for the minister to return to heaven even if he has three heads and six arms!

Obviously, Zhou Zhi has lost patience with the acting king, he really can't imagine, how can such an indecisive, woman-like person be able to carry the pillars of Dayan? If he is a prince of peace in the peaceful years, it is just a troubled era of the weak and the strong, it has only been six years since Dayan established the country, and the emperor has been replaced by three, if Shi Chaoqing can't be ruthless, he may soon become a dry bone in the grave

"What Sir said is very true, I have sent messengers to send orders to the military towns outside the city, so that they can return to Fanyang with all their subordinates, and then reorganize and integrate after entering the city......

"No, no, no!"

Zhou Zhi immediately denied Shi Chaoqing's statement.

"We must not let them enter the city, this is an extraordinary time, everything has to be guarded against, who knows if there are any of Shi Chaoyi's cronies in these military towns? The prison country only needs to order them to be stationed outside the city, even if Shi Chaoyi's army arrives, it must first clear the soldiers and horses outside the city before it is possible to attack the city!"

When he said these words, Zhou Zhi's face had no other color except ruthlessness, only Shi Chaoqing was a little uneasy.

"Isn't this a death for no reason? These soldiers have come on my military orders, and they are being treated like this...... Teach me how to feel at ease?"

"The prison country must no longer be a woman's benevolence! If they don't die, it's you who will die! How to choose, the prison country makes its own decisions!"

Zhou Zhi warned sharply, Shi Chaoqing finally withered, of course he would not let himself be sent to death.

……

Just when Fanyang City is mourning, Chang'an City, which is thousands of miles away, is a different scene, Guanzhong, which has been dry for two consecutive years, is finally smooth, the people are busy cultivating and working, and the busy scenes that can be seen everywhere are showing that Guanzhong must be a bumper harvest year this year.

Suddenly, several fast horses came from the official road in the direction of Tongguan, and went to the open gate of Chang'an. The people working in the fields were not surprised by this, they did not even have the time to look up, and they still skillfully buried their heads in sowing seeds.

Because there are countless cavalry on this official road that almost roars by every day, there are Shenwu troops who participate in military exercises, and there are messengers from all over the country, no matter what happens outside Guanzhong, as long as there is Doctor Qin in Guanzhong, as long as there is a Shenwu army, the people will have a good life, not only the people think so, even God thinks so, otherwise how can it be in the midst of a great drought in various places, and the wind and rain are smooth in Guanzhong?

Qin Jin received a military report from Yang Xingben, and the historical thief rebels stationed in Yecheng suddenly marched north a few days ago, and their whereabouts were unknown, and at the same time concisely told how the local Shenwu army cooperated with the new governor Yan Zhenqing.

Yan Zhenqing really did not disappoint Qin Jin, this is a brave and capable civil official, in fact, it can be seen that he can hold on alone in Pingyuan Jun County until now.

There are many displaced people in the northern part of Hebei Province who cannot escape, and Yan Zhenqing does not refuse to come, and accepts all of them and is incorporated into the private sector. However, Yan Zhenqing did not understand the operation of the Shenwu military and private enterprises, so the specific work could only be undertaken by a large number of private backbones dispatched by Luoyang.

All the plans were carried out in an orderly manner, and the only suspicious thing was that all their activities in Hebei were not counterattacked by the Shi Thief rebels, which was quite unexpected.

Looking at the detailed military report in front of him, Qin Jin and the prime minister Wei Jiansu and the fifth Qi sitting beside him said:

"Hebei's progress is rapid, the only strange thing is that the Shi Thief rebels did not counterattack, can the two ministers guess what the reason is?"

Fifth Qi Dao:

"There is a great drought in Hebei, starvation is everywhere, and it should be normal for the rebels of the historical thieves to have no reaction to the actions of the imperial court, after all, the emperor is not short of hungry soldiers, if they have enough military rations, how can they not fight back?"

In his opinion, Shi Siming's rebels in Hebei Province should have been short of food, so they were slow to react, so that they did not make a counterattack against the actions launched by Yan Zhenqing and Yang Xingben.

However, the Fifth Qi still has a skeptical attitude towards the private sector, even if the displaced people in Hebei are temporarily co-opted, but it is for the sake of having food, and if these displaced people are prohibited like the army, it will be extremely difficult to do. Therefore, what Qin Jin said about Hebei Province is that Hebei Province uses private enterprises to cover each other to protect itself in the case of insufficient troops, which is a bit too wishful thinking.

However, after all, this kind of questioning is far away from his responsibility, so there is no need to brush Qin Jin's tiger whiskers, only a few euphemistic reminders:

"After all, the displaced people in Hebei are different from other places, since the various departments outside the Saiwai have been annexed, they have long lived together with Hu and Han, and the people are fierce, and the slightest dissatisfaction may gather and cause chaos. Besides, most of the grain in Hanjiacang was squandered by the thieves, and they couldn't get it all, so they filled the stomachs of the homeless......"