However, when Cui Anqian, who was half a month old in Cizhou, finally got what he wanted and took 5,000 Xingzhou soldiers on his return journey after the messenger went back and forth several times; I heard another bad news.

Qianzelu Jiedu made Gao Xun once again coerced by the general Chenglin, and refused to accept Meng Fangli as the rear of the Zhaoyi army, and coerced the Jieya to retreat to Zezhou to defend it. The people of Luzhou even elected Wu Quanqiao to stay behind by the Military Supervision Academy.

Since then, the chaos in Ze and Lu prefectures in the mountains (Taihang) has recurred, and there have been three festivals in Zhaoyi Town for a time. And he had to lament in the Tianjing Pass that the authority of the imperial court had declined to such an extent, and the desire of the people's hearts was not filled at all.

In fact, during this period, in the name of mediation, he also sent corresponding negotiation envoys to the three towns of Heshuo, which were attacking cities in Hebei and Henan. But the corresponding result is also tragic and absolute.

Although Li Keju, the envoy of the Lu Long Army, who had already annexed most of the Yiwu Army, was quite deferential and courteous to the deceased, and patted his chest to ensure that he would follow the banner of the imperial court, he showed no sign of stopping the siege of Yizhou.

Cheng German army Wang Jingchong father and son, but also courtesy to receive the envoys sent by him; However, for the actions that are already occupying the territory of the Henghai Navy, it can be said that they are pushing two and doing five, but they can't wait to ask the imperial court to recognize their fait accompli, and use the thief as a threat to demand relevant restraints.

Even one of the Cheng German army still wanted to provide information to the subordinates of the imperial court that once the Cheng German army completely pacified the entire territory of the Henghai Navy, it would be to go south to plot Pinglu Town, which is located in the Qingzhou area.

As for Weibo Town, which had openly respected the banner of the thief army and invaded the land of Henan, Cui Anqian's envoy had no chance to reach the army of the commander Han Jian, and he had already disappeared on the road inexplicably; Even if he offered to pardon the other party and return to the court, it would be useless.

Therefore, Cui Anqian looked at himself and saw that he only had a corner of Hedong (now most of Shanxi and Yanbian, Inner Mongolia), which could be used as a basis and foundation for fighting thieves.

Among them, as the southwest gateway of Hedong Land, Hezhong Mansion (Linfen, Shanxi) and Hezhong Jiedu envoy Wang Chongrong, who had already killed the envoy of the prison army and publicly surrendered to the thief army, and turned around and gradually occupied and annexed, and the upper reaches of Fenshui were still loyal to the prefectures and counties under the banner of the imperial court.

The Zhaoyi army in the southeast Shangdang Basin quelled the rebellion; There is also a need for renewed conquest and pacification; In fact, he could rely on the northern capital Taiyuan and its Hedong town in the hinterland of Hedong, as well as the states to which the Beixing Camp of the Late Dynasty belonged to the north north of Yanmen.

However, although the northern states of Daibei are fierce and the cities are surrounded by many feudal clans, they are also mountainous and narrow, the land is barren and the products are not abundant; Like Shuofang and other military towns along the border, it has long needed supplies from the imperial court to maintain.

Therefore, he only has the "Jinzhong Basin" where the Taiyuan prefectures are located to maintain and support the Tianbing Army, the Datong Army, the Hengye Army, the Lan Army, and the Yunzhong Guards and other people to which Hedong Town belongs.

Therefore, if the Zelu prefectures cannot be pacified as soon as possible and the local wealth and inventory are obtained to supplement it, let alone go south to seek thieves to recover the lost territory, even maintaining the tens of thousands of troops under his command will become a problem.

Thinking of Fengtian City in Fengxiang Town, the prime minister Zheng Jin, who was struggling to maintain and support the situation in the northwest, Cui Anqian was a little unlucky and secretly sad for a while.

It's just that his mood didn't last long, and he quickly perked up; It is precisely because of such a difficult fact that these famous and prominent families should rise up from time to time and turn the tide of their madness.

At the very least, even if it is difficult for the imperial court to make a comeback in the future, his actions here are enough to set up one of the six rooms for the Qinghe Cui family, leaving enough prestige and foundation for several generations.

After all, although he is loyal to the court and serves his family and country for a moment, as he gets older and the children of his clan are more and more dependent, he also has to have a long-term plan for the future of the family and the family.

At this time, a message sent from Chang'an to Kanto made his face cloudy again. Because of the thief Huang Shun, who stole the two capitals, he didn't know what happened to be crazy and opened a branch in Chang'an and Luoyang at the same time.

Although he was blind because of his humble background, he made a lot of jokes and rights and wrongs in the corresponding "imperial examination" process because of the lack of rules and experience; However, under the call of regardless of background, in the end, thousands of people in the two places participated in this "thief test".

And among them, there were even scholars and lower-class officials. This clearly shows that it is further to compete with the imperial court for unification and people's hearts; And the Cui clan who stayed in the local area inevitably sent corresponding candidates to participate, thinking that they should be and secretly son.

Among them, there are two children of the Cui family, who also passed the initial examination and the re-examination, and entered the re-examination of the upper hall with only more than 100 people left; At the same time, the documents of the thief's test were sent to Cui Anqian urgently.

There is no road of righteousness, nor is there any judgment or poetry; Rather, it is a patchwork of questions and answers that lack relevance and order, concrete practices and case responses. It can be said that it is far from the traditional imperial examination of the imperial court, and it is more similar to the trivial study of Xu officials.

But the more this happened, the more uneasy Cui Anqian became; Because he could imagine the tendency of these topics to appeal to the officials and students who had been struggling to get into the stream. Subsequently, he made an additional statement in his reply to the letter:

"We must find ways to sabotage and disrupt this matter, but we can encourage people to write books to attack and refute it, and on the grounds of humiliating the dignity of the readers, we must first muddy the water."

However, it is like the truth that blessing and misfortune do not go alone. When Cui Anqian returned to Luzhou from the Tianjing Guanban Division, accepted the surrender of Wu Quanxuan, the envoy of the Military Supervision Academy, and was about to enter Zezhou again, another news came from Huainan that made him a little out of shape on the spot.

"The Four Wishes of Taiping? It's really damned, the thieves dare to speak up, isn't it going to disturb the grammar of this dynasty and usurp the righteousness and hearts of the country? ”

At this moment, Cui Anqian couldn't help but be a little pessimistic and disappointed; In the past, there were puppet dynasties who stole the Central Plains to use the imperial examination to attract officials, and then there were Taiping thieves in Jinghu and Liangling, who pretended to be righteous and competed with the imperial court for grammar and righteousness.

However, the forces of the world loyal to the imperial court are divided into three regions that are difficult to echo, and there is little that can be done about it. However, he also made up his mind again: he immediately sent an envoy to the north of Yanmen to promise all the expediency and convenience to reproduce the story of the relay in the Xiantong period.

- I'm the dividing line -

In the midst of the snowstorm, a group of men and horses who had just trekked through a ruined Bianzhou territory and crossed Jishui and Baigou had to stop and rest in the former military city adjacent to Huazhou.

Although each of them was dressed in thick coats and cotton robes, and even their mounts were covered with warm carpets; However, this intermittent winter march still made this specially selected team fall behind and attrition frequently.

Therefore, when they entered the empty Yuanwu military city, many of them were already frozen and stiff, and they could not even get off their mounts on their own. After the rapid rise of the bonfire and the hearth, the roasting and knocking off the snow and ice on the saddles and hubs, and warming the soldiers close to their mounts,

Zhu Laosan, who had white velvet on his beard and eyebrows, picked up a bowl of tea soup with sugar and minced ginger and slowly sipped it.