Escorted by several imperial guards, Du Rui slowly walked out of the palace gate.

Wei Yue and Mo Chou, who was wearing a veil, stood outside the gate of the palace, waiting for Du Rui.

Wei Yue's expression was a little nervous, his eyes were slightly flustered, he paced back and forth outside the gate, occasionally stood still, his body trembled, and from time to time he looked at the gate of the palace, and after seeing Du Rui, the breath that he had been carrying was spit out, and the whole person was much more relaxed, with a smile on his face, showing it in the sun, although it was still like a dried orange peel, but it did not make people feel ugly.

Mo Chou was very peaceful, because of the veil, she couldn't see her expression, she was standing under a pine tree, what was the posture at the beginning, Du Rui was still in that posture after he appeared at the gate.

Wei Yue greeted him and greeted those imperial guards with a smile.

"Thank you, my lords, be careful, not respectful."

He took some silver beans from the sleeves of his robes and handed them to the guards.

The atmosphere dictates that you have to send one or two, just like when you go to visit the Prime Minister's Mansion, you also have to give the door some money before sending your post to the second gate, so the prime minister has seven officials in front of the door.

At the end of the dynasty, this will be the case.

In the past, these were all unacceptable acts, but now, they are already high-sounding, not ashamed, and they all regard this as a matter of course, even if it is a figure like Zhang Qingchen or Chen Anmin, they can only ask their own family members to be upright, and they can only endure these customs, turn a blind eye, and dare not go against the trend.

As the chief steward, Wei Yue often had some small gold leaves, silver beans, and strings of copper coins in the sleeves of his robe.

Just like Li Zhong, what Wei Yue gave him was a small piece of gold leaf, which was equivalent to the total income of a family in Wannian County for a year, and as for those imperial guards, they also gave silver beans.

Du Rui has always been a loner, and he has no intersection with the gate valve family in Chang'an City, and he has never gone to the mansions of those court officials to pull relations, and he has always dealt with visitors in the palace, and those gold leaves and silver beans are prepared for this.

As for the copper coins, they were used by Du Rui, who often wandered around the market, and at that time, these copper coins could also come in handy.

Wei Yue was dealing with those imperial guards, and Mo Chou led three war horses to Du Rui.

She didn't speak, and Du Rui took the reins and turned over on the warhorse.

After a while, Mo Chou and Wei Yue also went to the door, followed Du Rui left and right, crossed the plain full of small yellow wildflowers, and walked towards their own camp. From time to time, people stood in the camp, looking at Du Rui and his party, but no one came out to greet him.

Du Rui drove the war horse and walked forward slowly.

He greeted the sun, squinting slightly, lost in thought.

Today, in the palace, he has obtained a bit of a large amount of information, and he has to think about it carefully.

Zhang Qingchen's second news was that the Jingbian Army had made Feng Li seriously ill.

Feng Li is a general under Guo Linggong, after Guo Linggong passed away, he did not continue to follow Guo Linggong's eldest son Guo Fei, he is more than 20 years older than Guo Fei, and he is the sole leader of an army, the prestige of Guo's group is not worse than Guo Fei, especially he led the headquarters of the people to quell the rebellion of the Handan Jiedu envoys, blocked the alliance of Yan and Zhao's envoys Wei Gong, so that the imperial court buried a needle in Hebei.

This needle made it difficult for the Hebei warlords, who had become de facto independent, to sleep.

Most importantly, Feng Li was a loyal minister.

At the beginning, Handan rebelled, and the rebels crossed the Yellow River and entered Henan.

Feng Li, who was stationed in Kaifeng, received a decree from the imperial court to lead the army to resist the rebels, but Feng Li complied with the imperial court's decree and led the Jingbian army to the north, defeating the rebels in the area of Anyang, and then a confrontation was formed.

Guo Fei sent a letter to him, telling him to stop in moderation and just stop the rebels.

However, Feng Li did not follow Guo Fei's advice, but led the elite troops, marched quickly on a snowy night, and raided Handan with surprise troops, captured the rebels' lair, quelled the rebellion, and returned Handan to the territory of the central court. And, with his own strength, he blocked the attack of the coalition forces of the warlords in Hebei, so that the rebels returned in vain, and had to admit that Handan was returned to the central court.

For a long time, Feng Li has been guarding Handan, which is the mainstay.

Now, he is seriously ill, it is conceivable that the situation in Hebei must have changed, Handan is mostly unstable, otherwise, Zhang Qingchen would not be worried, but unfortunately, Du Rui did not hear about the specific situation, when Zhang Qingchen said that Feng Li was seriously ill, the emperor sent Du Rui out, and did not let him listen to what was said later, why did he do this? The emperor should have his own considerations, right?

After all, Du Rui's title is Handan Jun, and Handan is his fiefdom.

In the eyes of the emperor, he was still young, and he was really involved in military affairs, and he couldn't interfere.

Mingtang, there are a few more people.

Yingzong Du Zhen stood on the throne, and his face sank like water.

Under the throne, on the left side, Linghu Xingzhi held a cloud sweep, bowed his head slightly, silent, on his side, Li Yungang stood with his hands tied, on the other side, Zhang Qingchen was located at the top, his face was solemn, on his side, there were two court officials, both from the Ministry of War, the leader was Gu Qingzhi, the left attendant of the Ministry of War, yes, he was born in Jingzhao Gu, this autumn hunt, there are officials from the three provinces and six departments.

Feng Li is seriously ill, this is a big deal.

When Du Zhen called Li Yungang to the front of the palace, he couldn't answer, and he didn't know if there was a problem with the line in Handan, or if there was a situation within the warden department, he had nothing to say, but kowtowed and confessed, however, Du Zhen did not reprimand Li Yungang, but asked him to find out the situation as soon as possible.

Regarding the situation in Handan, the Warden Department had information before.

As long as Feng Li exists, with his prestige in the army, the existence of a mainstay, no one dares to disobey, and Handan has always been in the hands of the central court, after all, Feng Li's loyalty has long been known to the world.

This year, Feng Li is seventy-nine years old, as a grandmaster-level martial artist, he is actually not old, under normal circumstances, after eighty-five is the period of decay, if the resources can keep up, there is no problem in living to the age of one hundred.

Guo Linggong, as a great grandmaster, lived to be one hundred and eighteen years old.

However, this is normal.

Feng Li joined the army when he was a child, and his young and middle-aged people experienced life and death battles, and in the battles of Guo Ling's fair rebellion, he took the lead many times, and fought decisive battles with enemy generals, and he suffered countless injuries on his body.

However, the body is always the same body.

There are too many injuries, like an old house with cracks and holes in the walls, and it has long been overwhelmed.

In this regard, Chang'an has been prepared for a long time, but he didn't expect that he would suddenly become seriously ill, and he thought that he would survive for a few years.

The candidate to replace Feng Li, the court has been arguing, all parties do not give in to each other, and there has been no good candidate, you know, as early as three years ago, Feng Li has already said that he wants to return to his hometown, almost every year there are begging bones, as a result, the forces of all parties in the court are deadlocked, and the generals who have not decided to replace Feng Li for three years have dragged it to the present.

Now, there are two options.

One plan is to transfer a general from Chang'an to the Jingbian Army and take over the authority of Feng Li, however, this general must have prestige in the Jingbian Army, otherwise, it is impossible to get the approval of the soldiers.

In the land of Hebei, rebellion is common.

Every time, the rotation of the Jiedu envoys is full of blood, and various conspiracies continue.

Basically, the generals elected by the court all belong to the Guo group, and they are not as loyal to him as the emperor as they are to the Guo family, and they are not the characters in their own entrainment, so Du Zhen naturally will not agree. However, the generals he liked, even if they were proposed by his henchmen in the palace, were opposed by most of the ministers, and there were good reasons for this.

Compared to this one, the other one is much simpler.

According to the usual practice of the towns of Hebei, he was promoted within the Jingbian Army.

All along, the towns of Hebei are like this, if the festival degree makes the passing, after some internal elimination, or mutual compromise to reach a consensus, or move the sword, the strong on the throne, finally, the new festival to make the election, only to the central court to write, a notice, if it can be recognized by the central court is naturally the best, if there is no recognition, it doesn't matter.

It's convenient to do this, but I just opened this door, and I'm afraid that Handan Town will also embark on the road of secession.

Although the Jingbian Army is directly under the central government, it can be regarded as a forbidden army, entrenched behind Handan Town, in order to facilitate the defense of Hebei towns, such as the right to recruit troops and logistics and supply are all decentralized, it can be said that the military and government are unified, in fact, it is equivalent to local warlords. Feng Li is loyal, so it's easy to say, if he is replaced by an ambitious leader, it is difficult to say what will become when the time comes.

The court officials here in Mingtang are all Du Zhen's henchmen, and everyone is discussing how to deal with this matter.

Zhang Qingchen put forward a suggestion, since it was impossible to let the generals of his own side go to command the Jingbian army, it was better to break up in two, so he simply chose the second plan and selected a general loyal to the imperial court in the Jingbian army.

Naturally, there were objections to his suggestion.

After all, knowing people and knowing faces but not knowing their hearts, now, the generals who seem to be loyal to the imperial court have really reached that position, if ambition is born, wouldn't Hebei have another town of warlords?

Zhang Qingchen has a solution, that is, the separation of military and government.

Cutting off financial power and local jurisdiction from the Jingbian army, allowing a civilian official from a college to sit in Handan, and controlling logistics and supplies to form a constraint on the army, so as to prevent the army from becoming independent and separating one side.

This method is recognized by everyone.

After all, compared to martial arts, civil officials are more loyal.

However, there are still some objections, that is, most of the martial artists disdain civilian officials, and this may force the martial arts, and they didn't want to rebel in the end, so they need a heavyweight royal family member to suppress the formation.

At this point, everyone fell silent.

Du Zhen was also silent.

A figure conjured up in his mind.

Let's talk about it!

Finally, he said.