Compared with the various discussions among the people, no one in the court dared to speak out against it.

Because this decision was put forward by the emperor himself, how dare others speak out against it.

After the large-scale purge of the Secret Office, many of the civilian officials who originally supported the Great Prince were almost eliminated, and these officials accounted for almost the majority of the civilian group.

The remaining Xungui clique naturally will not go against the new emperor, and now there is almost no opposition in the court, and all officials and ministers are "well-behaved".

However, anyone with a discerning eye can see that this decision is not so much the meaning of Emperor Shuntian, but the meaning of An Guogong.

Now the power of the imperial court, especially the military power of the whole country, is almost in the hands of An Guogong.

Such a major decision, if it wasn't for An Guogong's intentions, how could he agree with it.

Although the decision is controversial, anyone who knows the situation in various parts of the south may understand An Guogong's approach.

Because the local guard posts in the southern interior have not fought seriously for many years, their soldiers can be said to be vulnerable. Moreover, the situation of the local guard station stealing and selling weapons without permission is also clear.

It is almost impossible to hold the towns in the south with such troops and equipment, and they will only be eaten up by the Hu people one by one.

Therefore, the only way now is to gather all the soldiers of the guard post and hold one place, and then use the superior forces to resist the further invasion of the Hu people.

Although it seems that the two provinces of Yannan and Zhenyuan are directly surrendered, the Hu people do not know how to farm, let alone manage with their hearts, and they run away every time, as long as the time is long, they will inevitably not be able to stay for a long time.

After the Hu people's military rations are exhausted, they can organize a large army to slowly regain the lost territory until they drive the Hu people out of the interior.

In the eyes of An Guogong, compared with the Hu people who ran away after grabbing and were like beasts, the Northwest Army, which had just occupied the northeastern provinces, was the real enemy.

An Guogong was worried that as soon as the hundreds of thousands of heavy troops stationed in Jiangnan were withdrawn and turned to support the southern region, the Northwest Army would take advantage of the weakness.

Especially now that the autumn harvest is approaching, the possibility that the Northwest Army, which lacks military rations, will take the opportunity to sneak attack Jiangnan is too high.

The provinces south of the Yangtze River were the heartland of the Great Wei, and most of the money and grain came from here.

Once Jiangnan is lost, the entire Great Wei will be in danger, so he will not mobilize the soldiers and horses that calm Jiangnan to aid the south under any circumstances.

Even if we really want to send troops to support the south, we must wait until the end of the autumn harvest before we can transfer some troops to do this.

An Guogong has led the army for many years, and he is very confident in his own decision, and will not be shaken by other people's ideas.

And this so-called "other person" is none other than his grandson: Emperor Shuntian Zhao Yufeng.

Zhao Zhuofeng once strongly opposed the abandonment of Yannan and Zhenyuan provinces, what is the difference between this and giving it to the Hu people for nothing.

Since the founding of Wei Taizu, which emperor has ever done such a ridiculous thing.

Compared with Wei Taizu, who founded the country, Zhao Yufeng admired and admired the emperor Wu Di, the imperial grandfather, who pacified the southwest and northwest and expanded the territory of the Great Wei by nearly a quarter.

Emperor Wu of Wei has made many personal expeditions in his life, not only killing the Changmao tribe on the southwest plateau, but also beating the Hu people outside the pass to the point that they dare not invade the Great Wei for decades, and he is one of the very few mighty emperors in history who can suppress the fierce foreign tribes so thoroughly.

Since he was a child, Zhao Zhuofeng has been determined to become an ancient emperor with outstanding martial arts like Emperor Wu of Wei, so he will practice riding and archery and swords and guns since he was a child, hoping that one day he can be like Emperor Wu of Wei to conquer and sweep all directions, and achieve a great feat that has been passed down through the ages.

But reality slapped him hard.

Not long after he ascended the throne, he encountered a major incident such as the internal invasion of the Hu people.

Now he is even more forced to give up the entire two provinces in vain and let the Hu people wreak havoc, which is very unacceptable to Zhao Yufeng, who takes Emperor Wei Wu as an example.

When he was discussing privately with An Guogong, he strongly asked his grandfather to transfer troops from Jiangnan back to the southwest to defend the southwest, and drive the Hu people out of the inland as soon as possible to recover the lost territory.

But An Guogong didn't listen to his advice at all, and still insisted on going his own way. And he insisted that he should issue the decree, which made him even more angry.

But what about the annoyance, he couldn't do anything about it now.

Now almost all of the military power of Great Wei is in the hands of An Guogong, and even the forbidden army guarding the capital has all been replaced by An Guogong's henchmen.

Zhao Yufeng found that he had no credible henchmen under his command at all, and he was not even as good as his father, Emperor Jing'an.

At least my father still has Jin Wuwei and Yu Linwei, the four palace forbidden troops available, but he has nothing.

He felt like a puppet with the name of the emperor, and the person who pulled the string was none other than his foreign Gongguo.

"Once you're in my place, you'll know why I'm doing this."

At this moment, Zhao Yufeng couldn't help but think of what his father said before he died, and his mood was very complicated.

He now finally knew why his father had done that.

This feeling of being treated as a puppet is so uncomfortable that it makes him feel like a fish in his throat and he can't sleep well.

……………………

While the Hu people continued to burn and loot in the southern region, the Northwest Army in Jiujiang ushered in batches of grain purchased from overseas.

It turned out that as early as a month ago, Chi Fei and Ning Yabai began to prepare for a plan to go to sea for food.

Jiujiang has a well-developed fishing industry, and there are many fishing boats going to sea in the local area.

Ning Yabai rented hundreds of large merchant ships and fishing boats from local merchants and fishermen to serve as grain carriers to prepare for the sea.

All grain ships are divided into six fleets, each of which departs in one direction and is responsible for trading with the regions or countries that pass in that direction.

Regarding the items traded, in addition to the high-quality white salt produced by the Yantian method, Chi Fei also deliberately asked Zhao Yaoguang, Anyang and others who were far away in Jiangnan to use the silver obtained from selling salt to buy a large number of delicate but not expensive fabrics and porcelain, as well as a large number of spices and spices, from Jiangnan locally, and then secretly transported them back to Jiujiang.

After the cloth, porcelain, spices, and spices were transported to Jiujiang, Chi Fei loaded them onto the ship with the packaged white salt, and then transported them to the small surrounding countries to exchange grain and money.

As Chi Fei expected, these Dawei specialties and high-quality white salt were extremely popular with merchants and wealthy people from surrounding countries, who almost bought these things as luxury goods from Dawei.

What's even more rare is that this kind of "door-to-door" transaction method is an intimate service that these small neighboring countries have never experienced, and they have expressed their hope that the fleet can make more trips in the future.

Due to the good year this year, many small neighboring countries such as Baiyi, Gray Yi, and Malai, which were originally rich in grain, have generally ushered in a bumper harvest.

The local grain price is even much cheaper than that in these grain-producing areas in the south of the Yangtze River, which has the taste of cheap grain hurting farmers.

This is just the cheapest for the northwestern fleets that went to exchange grain. So they easily exchanged white salt and various Dawei specialties for a large amount of grain through local merchants.

It was not until the ships carrying the grain could no longer be loaded that the captain exchanged the remaining goods for hard currency such as gold and silver, which were easy to carry.

Sea trade is really a lucrative business, even this kind of short-distance sea trade, can make a lot of money.

Almost all the ships from the northwest that went to sea returned to Jiujiang with a load of grain, gold and silver, and each fleet caused a sensation when it arrived at port.

After Ning Zhiyuan looked at the granary, his whole heart finally let go completely.

With this batch of grain, the Northwest Army will not be short of food for at least a year or two.

Through the great success of this overseas grain exchange, Ning Zhiyuan felt that his little son-in-law was right: the barren and arid northwest was originally deficient, and if it wanted to become truly rich and strong, it was necessary to vigorously develop maritime trade and try its best to expand its maritime territory.

Ning Zhiyuan decided not only to vigorously develop maritime trade, but also to build as many military ships as possible and train a large number of sailors to enhance the combat capability at sea.

Because Ning Zhiyuan had a great ambition in his heart: he wanted to establish a powerful naval division, take all the open seas of the Great Wei, and let only the military ships and merchant ships in the northwest be left on the sea.

To do this, you must have the strength to dominate the entire open sea.